Peace At Last

Part One
         
         “Kill him, Corporal Ohlund,” Sergeant Nathan Hall ordered, leaning against the front door of the house we broke into.
         “Sir, he’s unarmed. He didn’t do anything.” I heard the man saying something in Arabic behind me. Probably praying. I took a quick glance at him. He had dark skin and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Since we took over Manhattan that was good enough for death, it seemed. There were bruises covering his face and his nose looked broken.
         “He’s a rag head,” Hall shot back. “It’s their fault we’re here anyway. You’re telling me he didn’t do anything?”
         “Please, sir. He’s still an American. This is illegal.”
         “Illegal? Shit, Corporal, if you don’t kill him, I’ll shoot you for insubordination. That’s not illegal. We’re here to sweep the area of any possible future threats.”
         “Just because he’s not white doesn’t mean he’ll try to kill you!” I yelled.
         Out of the corner of my eye I saw my other squad members kill the man’s family. They were huddled together, embracing each other for the last time, crying for mercy that wouldn’t be shown. Three were lucky enough to get a gunshot to the head while two were left to bleed out through the holes in their chests. A third –a little girl holding a doll in her arms- was shot in the leg by Ron and tried to crawl away, still clutching the doll. Ron stood over her and laughed. He probably shot her in the leg just to make her suffer a little longer. He took out his handgun, and shot her in the head. I turned around to the man and saw him weeping. I wish I could have said it was the first time I had witnessed a scene like this, but the Second Confederacy of America wasn’t exactly known for its great treatment of occupied people. Who knew a piece of legislature removing “In God We Trust” from our currency could have led to a downward spiral that resulted in the Bible Belt seceding?
         I knew there was no getting out of this. If I ran, Hall would shoot me. If I somehow survived and went AWOL, I would just be killed later when the South took over the rest of the country. Everything went out of focus. There wasn’t enough blood going to my head. Hands shaking, I raised my rifle and pointed it at the man’s head. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. My mind must have blotted out the sound of the rifle because all I remembered was hearing the man hit the floor. I opened my eyes and saw him lying there; eyes open, staring straight through me. There was a huge hole in his head and a growing pool of blood on the hardwood floor under him.
         “Alright, we’re done here. Double-time it back to base. We need to be back by oh-three-hundred hours,” ordered Sergeant Hall. As everyone else left the dimly lit room, I knelt down next to the man whose life I just took and rummaged through his pockets. I needed to know his name. I wasn’t going to let a nameless face haunt me. Sergeant Hall came back in, red-faced and eyes bulging out of their sockets.
         “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he roared as he grabbed me by the collar. I could see the veins pulsating in his neck. “I outrank you, and you do what I say when I say it. You make me look bad when you question my orders, especially in front of others. I should fucking shoot you. Now fall the hell in.” Sergeant Hall was one of those people that actually meant it when he said he was going to kill someone. Once when he was on guard duty, he prowled around the barracks saying he was going to kill one of the prisoners because he was a Northern sympathizer. Two days later we found the man dead outside the grounds of the camp. Hall said he tried to escape, but we found blood inside the base grounds. I did as I was told.
         As I trudged behind the rest of the squad in the mud and rain, I heard the others joking about what just happened.
         “Sergeant, did we really have to do that? There were no reports on that address,” Private Will Rocca asked Hall.
         “Even if there were no reports, you can’t trust those camel-jockeys. Every time my dad sent letters back from Ramadi, Iraq, he said you couldn’t trust them. The fact that my dad and McAllister’s dad was killed protecting them makes it even truer.”
         “Roger that, Sergeant,” replied Will in a defeated tone.
         “Man, did you see her head come apart?” exclaimed Ron. “It felt so… invigorating, I guess.” Ron McAllister was a fervent Baptist, or at least he called himself one. I never understood how someone could say they love God and then condemn someone else to their death.
         “Christ, Ron. You say the same thing every time you kill someone. You never get enough of this stuff, do you?” inquired Will.
         “Hell no, man. I’m no softie like Mr. Compassion back there.” Ron turned and looked at me. “Seriously, suck it up, you pussy. If it weren’t for people like that, we wouldn’t be here. This is war.” I doubt that a blue-collar guy like that, undoubtedly living from paycheck to paycheck and trying to support his family, was to blame for the war, I thought to myself as I retrieved a cigarette from my breast pocket and lit it up. I rummage through my pants pockets and pulled out the man’s wallet. I checked his license and looked at his name. Hamir Al-Humad. That was seven years ago.

Part Two

         I sat up and took another shot of whiskey and then pressed the shotgun under my jaw. I had a death grip on the gun and felt the barrel’s icy embrace on my chin. Beads of sweat poured from my brow and my lips quivered with fear. It’s how I spent every night since the nightmares came back, but nothing ever came of it because I was such a coward. My dreams were always about May 12, 2013. The cries, the screams, the gunshots, the disfigured faces, and Hamir were all taking their punches at my conscience. If only I had an ounce of fortitude, maybe things would have been different. Then again, if I had any fortitude, I would have shot myself by then. Maybe then those people would have forgiven me. I just couldn’t do it.
         I lowered the gun and took out the license. It was the only thing –aside from a guilty conscience- that I kept from the war. I stared at Hamir’s picture, searching for a way to make up for what I had done. Unfortunately, Hamir wasn’t giving up any answers. I looked around the dark void that was my apartment. Strewn all over my floor were twenty or so bottles of Wild Turkey which were to blame for the stench of whiskey that had been the other resident of my home since I got there. There were newspaper articles about the Second Civil War thrown all over my tables and pinned up against my cabinets, and everything was lit by the streetlight that shone through from the outside. I got up and paced toward my window. Outside, a giant screen and loudspeaker drilled public announcements and nationalistic ideas into the minds of passers-by. There was also a camera on the street corner for keeping us in line. At street-level, there was trash on the old, damaged sidewalk and graffiti all over my building’s walls.
I turned around and took a seat on the couch again. I caught my reflection in the mirror next to my bedroom door. A tall man with green eyes, black shoulder-length hair and a permanent five o’clock shadow was sitting on the couch with a half-empty bottle of whiskey in front of him and a shotgun in his hands. What a sad sight.
         I needed to relax, or at least try. I got up and turned on my TV. It was a really old Panasonic, probably from the early 2000’s, but I got the news and that’s all that mattered to me, even if it was all spoon-fed to us by some government press lackey who tried to put a patriotic, all-American spin on everything Chancellor Wright did. The latest headline was a story about the National Internal Defense Act, and the reporter yammered on and on about that goddamn piece of paper. It was about to be renewed for another ten years. The law was passed in 2015 for a five-year period and enabled the government to jail or execute anyone they chose without trial in the name of national security. Chancellor Wright, who first took power as the president of the Second Confederacy and led it to victory, made his career off the Act and kept the former United States (now called the United Confederacy of America) “safe.” He claimed he simply wanted to “preserve the union,” but us closet liberals knew he had used the Act to turn the United States into a totalitarian state.. Kind of ironic for someone who used to lead a confederacy, but glaring contradictions often went overlooked in the new society since the Second Civil War. That war was my ever-present nightmare.
         The war was preceded by an influx of northeastern liberalism in Congress. First, they passed a law to take out “In God We Trust” from all currency. Good riddance. Then, American sympathizing cities and troop bases in Iraq were hit by close-range Iranian nukes. It was the worst possible time for such a thing to happen. Most of the south and Midwest took it as punishment from their god and became paranoid of any foreign-looking person. No one noticed the similarities to the mid-nineteenth century. No one noticed the deterioration in relations between liberal and conservative or North and South. Politics became less about one’s country and more about your religion and skin color. There were more laws passed that most of the Southern states refused to comply with, and eventually Texas and Alabama seceded, with Thomas Wright, a former senator, being the outspoken. Within a year, the entire south and most of the Midwest followed.
         Sure enough, the headline on the television used the usual rhetoric to back the persecutions. Phrases like “…preserving the moral and religious integrity of our nation…” somehow became accepted as a good reason to line up and shoot an entire family just because they weren’t Christian. Since the South won, there were still routine executions of underground religious sects.
         I lay down and put the shotgun under my couch. As I closed my eyes and tried to relax long enough to drift away, I couldn’t help but fear what memories might come to me in my sleep. Forunately – or unfortunately, I could never be sure – I didn’t sleep that night.

Part Three

I was in an almost catatonic state for I don’t know how long when a knock at my door knocked me out of my stupor. I looked at the clock. The glaring little numbers claimed it was a little past eleven in the morning. I got up to answer the heavy wooden door and was met with a less than pleasant surprise.
         “Liam! Come on, get dressed. Ron and Will are waiting in the car. We’re going to get some lunch.” It was my friend, Nathan. Actually, I shouldn’t have called him my friend because I hated him with my entire heart. I hated Ron too, but Will was a decent guy. He saved my ass a few times during the war. We all served in the same platoon, though, so for some reason Will felt obligated to keep in touch with Ron and Nathan. Combat bond, I guessed. Nathan was essentially the polar opposite of me. He was cocky, clean-shaven, had gained a few pounds since leaving the army, with a blonde crew cut and almost black eyes.
         “I really don’t feel like going out today, Nat,” I responded, shaking my head.
         “Come on, Liam. You’ve been shut in for almost a week now. We wanted to see you for a while.”
         “Yeah, well, I’m really just not interested today.”
         “Liam,” shouted Nathan. He pointed his finger at me. “You owe us this. Do you know how hard it’s been to keep our Business Officer from firing you? You’re lucky you’re a vet, man. Usually people who go a week without showing up to work don’t keep their job.” Yeah, I was so very, very lucky. I knew Nat only wanted me so he could feign some line about forgetting his wallet and leave me with getting the bill. Still, I humored him.
         The ride to the restaurant made me wish I had brought my gun with me so I could’ve shot them all in the head. They reminisced about the war, and I sulked in the back seat, next to Will. He looked like a guitarist out of some death metal band, with long, straight, black hair and a coarse, black beard which he was almost always scratching as if in deep thought.
         “Hey man, are you okay? You’re really quiet,” he asked.
         “I guess I’m the only one who gets tired of war stories,” I mumbled, staring out the window.
         “Listen, I can tell you’re having problems accepting it, but we did the right thing,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t like being touched. “We fought for our country and we fought for God, man. We did what we were told. You have to move on, man, and stop blaming yourself. You didn’t start the war.” It was the first time I ever heard Will talk like that. It sounded like something straight out of a Chancellor Wright speech. Even during the war, he never would have talked like that. He must have been hanging out with Ron and Nathan too much. I felt bad for him. He must have memorized that line. Maybe Will felt guilty too?
         “Yeah, that one’s Chancellor Wright’s fault,” I replied.
         “No, it was those damn heathen Northerners. You know that, man,” Nathan chimed in. Somehow I couldn’t justify shooting a man in the head just because of his religion.
         “Jesus, Liam. Maybe you should have stayed home after all. You’re going crazy,” said Ron. Ron was a giant; it was a wonder he managed to fit inside the car. He easily passed six and a half feet tall, but his frame was even more impressive. With red hair and a giant red beard, he reminded me of the pictures of Leif Erickson that I saw in my history books back when I was in school. He was also Nathan’s best friend, but acted more like a sidekick; he agreed with everything Nathan said and most definitely believed everything he said. We stopped at a red light and I looked out the window. I saw a gun store and came to a decision.
         “Yeah, I think you’re right. Do me a favor, Nat, and drop me off here. I’m going to walk home.” They pulled over, let me out, and drove off. As they rounded the corner, I walked inside the store. There were old M-16’s and AK-47’s lined up against one wall, and shotguns were placed on racks high above a man I assumed was the owner. Handguns were in a glass showcase and rifles were lined up behind the cash register. There was one good thing about being a veteran: everyone trusted you. You didn’t have to wait for your gun to be registered with the federal government before you could take it home. The owner grimaced at me.
         “Can I help you?” he inquired with a not-so subtle tone of annoyance. He was a short, fat man who looked like he wanted to go home early and I had ruined his day.
         “Yes, I’d like to take a look at that H&K nine-millimeter handgun, please.” I handed him my old dog tags and discharge papers. Vets were advised to keep both with them at all times so we could get access to certain benefits. The owner apologized to me. I paid the man, and took the gun.
         I walked out of the store with my new handgun tucked into my belt, hidden under my jacket. I called Will on my cell-phone. He told me that they were at Vick’s Diner, just down the road from where they dropped me off. I could hear Nat’s obnoxious voice in the background. I trudged down the sidewalk in the pouring rain, staring straight ahead. It reminded me of the walk back to base from Hamir’s house. I lit up a cigarette. People must have thought I was a madman, because I caught a lot of odd stares. Maybe they were right. It wouldn’t matter by the time the day ended.
         I looked into the window at Vick’s Diner and saw the group sitting in a booth, already eating. I never knew why they liked Vick’s so much. If you ordered a burger, you either got it burnt to a crisp or frozen solid. They were enjoying themselves, it seemed. I couldn’t understand how they could when they were probably remembering everything they did during the war. Nonetheless, I felt like I shouldn’t have brought the gun. They were people, too. As I walked in I could feel the stares. I felt like everyone knew that I had a gun hidden under jacket. I ignored the tired-looking hostess at the door and took a seat next to Will as Nat opened his mouth.
         “So you decided to come after all, huh?” I didn’t respond. I just stared downward at the table. Nat decided not to follow up on his question. He went back to telling war stories with the other two.
         “Oh man, my favorite was in Manhattan,” exclaimed Ron, “when we busted up that rag head and his family. They were like little rats. Scumbags. Hey Liam, do you remember that? You put a gigantic hole in that one fucker.”
         “His name was Hamir,” I replied.
         “What the hell are you talking about?” asked Ron.
         “Liam, are you okay?” asked Will, turning towards me.
         “His name was Hamir. That man I killed, his name was Hamir. Hamir Al-Humad,” I replied, clenching my fists.
         “Shit, I don’t give a damn what his name was. Creatures like that don’t need names, they need a bullet in the head,” answered Ron. “How the hell do you know his name, anyway?”
         “Guys, maybe we should just chill a bit?” I heard Will’s voice slightly quiver. “He’s soaking wet. Let him settle.” He raised a hand as if he could actually convince Nat and Ron to do anything.
         “Shut the fuck up, Will. Liam, you’re really killing our day out. Stop it. That’s an order, soldier,” interrupted Nat, with his finger pointed at me. I knew he was half-joking but still half-serious. The prick thought he still had control over me.
         In one swift motion, I ripped the gun from my waist, pointed it squarely at Nat’s throat, and pulled the trigger. This time I didn’t close my eyes. I watched the bullet tear through his neck and explode through the other side. It felt like time slowed down for the sole purpose of letting me enjoy the image. The shouts and cries of the people in the diner brought me right back to Hamir’s house. It made me even angrier. I turned my aim to Ron. He looked from Nat to me. His eyes widened as the bullet screamed into his head. His head jerked backwards as the bullet brought its familiar companions of bone, tissue, and blood through the back of his skull. It was such a sweet escape. I had never felt better. Some of the other customers were ducking under tables. Two who were close to the entrance decided to run straight out the door. They left the third of their group, a teenager, in the booth. He stared at me open-mouthed.
         I looked at Will. His face was like mine: covered in Nat and Ron’s blood. He looked at me with what I took as total despair and fright. I knew he was a decent person deep down. I realized he only spouted that bullshit in the car because he forced himself to genuinely believe it so he didn’t kill himself. I couldn’t kill him.
         I got up and walked out of the diner. It was still raining outside but it felt good.  Sirens wailed in the distance. When I got back to my apartment, I put the gun on the coffee table, took off my jacket, and sat down on the couch. I looked around my home, and everything somehow seemed brighter than usual. Colors were more vivid. Adrenaline, probably, or maybe I did the right thing for once. I took out Hamir’s license one more time and looked at his face. I didn’t feel guilty about him anymore. I repaid him as much as I could. I avenged him. As I leaned back and closed my eyes for what only seemed like five minutes, I heard sirens outside my window. A few seconds later there was the thunder of boots and shouts echoing up the stairs. As the police broke my door down and had their flashlights pointed at me, screaming indecipherable commands, I smiled. I didn’t care if they shot me on the spot or sent me to jail. I figured either one would be peaceful.