Year of the Tiger (11 page)

Or maybe not. Maybe I would’ve been killed instead of just getting blown up.

Who knows? It’s stupid to spend a lot of time thinking about what would have happened if things had been different. Things would have been
different
, that’s all, and you can’t change it anyway.

But sometimes I think there’s another life I could have had. Should have had. And maybe some other version of me is having it, like in some Sci-Fi Channel movie.

Which probably means it’s low-budget and lame.

The funny thing is, when I first got the transfer, I thought it might be good news, because the patrols were really starting to suck.

Like this one time, we were outside the wire on a cheesecake run, escorting a KBR truck that was transporting chow from our FOB to a small base about fifty clicks away, and we were almost there, the lead vehicle just rolling up to the gate.

‘Creed’s a bunch of pussies,’ the soldier next to me was saying to me. ‘You gotta check out System of a Down.’

That was when something exploded. It was so loud, it was like being on the inside of thunder. The left wheels of the Humvee lifted off the ground and fell back, bounced twice; metal spat against the hood and windshield like popcorn. Our gunner fired off one burst, two; somebody yelled into the radio; I smelled hot copper; and next to me, the soldier shouted, ‘Oh, fuck!’

Standard operating procedure is, you move out of the kill zone, set up a 360, a secure field of fire, and request a quick reaction force, because a lot of times a bomb is followed by small-arms fire, hajji trying to pick you off in the confusion.

I waited for the gunfire, but it never came. Everything settled down, like a spent cloudburst.

It was a suicide bomber, not an IED. He’d blown himself up too soon, with most of the damage hitting a blast wall. The KBR truck got dinged and broke an axle. The trucker had a thigh laceration that was bleeding a lot, so they radioed back for me to come and help.

I trotted up the street thinking, oh God, I am going to die, trying to keep low, ears ringing, the heat and the smoke searing my lungs.

‘Fucking shithole,’ the soldier jogging next to me said.

They’d put the base at the edge of a town, securing the perimeter by clearing out the buildings on the surrounding block and throwing up some blast walls and razor wire. The KBR truck sat crooked and smoking, partially blocking the entrance.

I put a pressure bandage on the trucker (who was doing okay for an overweight fifty-two-year-old with high blood pressure and a pack-a-day habit), and we got him on a gurney to take him to the aid station inside the base.

About a half dozen soldiers had gathered by the blast wall closest to the gate.

One of them, a buddy of mine, said: ‘Hey, Doc, check this out!’ He pointed, grinning. ‘Way to go, asshole!’

What was left of the bomber was lumps of gore, splinters of bone, shredded clothes, a leg flung up against the blast wall, sneaker still on the foot.

‘Where’s the other leg?’ I asked.

‘That’s not the good part,’ my buddy said.

I looked where he pointed. There was a face lying a couple feet from the torso, peeled off from the skull like a mask.

‘Too bad it’s not Halloween,’ I said.

Even the trucker laughed at that.

Two weeks later, I got transferred to this new FOB because they were down a medic, who I later learned had gotten shrapnel in his head and throat from a mortar round. He didn’t die, though, and I heard he only drools a little, so consider him Private Lucky Motherfucker. Because this FOB just sucked. No mochaccinos there. The place was about the size of a football field, if that. Let’s call it Camp Falafel, which of course is not what it was called, because the U.S. Army prefers more serious names, like Camp Screaming Eagle, or Operation Enduring Kill the Stupid Rag-Heads. The base was built around an old Baathist government complex just outside of this provincial town that was a center of the insurgency, the insurgency that nobody wanted to admit existed back then.

In addition to what we called the Admin Core – offices, I thought at first – there were low, long barracks that used to house Iraqi soldiers. Republican Guards, I found out later. The existing buildings weren’t enough for us plus the prisoners that ended up getting detained there, so Camp Falafel had rows of tents as well.

Though I still rode along on supply runs now and again, I was mostly tasked to assist the physician’s assistant, Staff Sergeant Blanchard, at the aid station.

Blanchard was this tall, blocky guy with bad skin and birth-control glasses, those ugly-ass, Army-issue black-framed glasses that only look good on ironic alternative rock musicians, which he was not. The guy was a dick. He was always riding me, like I had no business hanging with the boys in a war zone. If I had been honest with him, I would have agreed. I didn’t want to be there.

But I wouldn’t admit that, because I wanted to do a good job. Instead, I just took all his insults, about how I couldn’t lift the gurneys because I was too fucking weak, how I was too fucking stupid to know what to do. Mostly he was pissed off that I wouldn’t sleep with him.

I hated being alone with Blanchard. I never knew exactly what he was going to pull, but I could always count on him to be a dick.

This was typical: One night when I was restocking the supply cupboard, he came up behind me and pressed himself against my back. I could feel his hard-on poking me. I really wasn’t in the mood.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. I’m not doing anything. Just getting some Betadine.’

He had me pushed against the shelves, and his hand reached over my shoulder, toward the shelf that was right about level with my chest. I knew where it was heading.

I sidestepped and squirmed past him.

‘Don’t be such a bitch,’ he called after me.

Mostly we dealt with everybody’s owwies and boo-boos: sprained ankles, heat stroke, skin infections, dysentery, gastroenteritis, that kind of thing. Plus, given the age of some of the Guard, we had to treat high blood pressure, cardiac infarction, even a stroke. Then there was the soldier nobody knew, some specialist, who one day just blew his brains out. Who knows why? Nobody knew the guy. He arrived one day and, two weeks later, decided to kill himself. Pretty fucking inconsiderate of him.

Then there were the Iraqi prisoners. The PUCs. That’s military-speak for ‘Persons Under Control.’

The PUCs would come in all kinds of different ways.

I take the train and then the bus to Mati Village, duffel slung over my shoulder.

If this is about Lao Zhang, then the
jiaozi
place the Monk has in mind is the one in Mati Village where Lao Zhang and I always go. If not, well, at least I can eat some
jiaozi
.

But maybe this is a really bad idea. If the PSB or whoever the fuck that John guy works for are watching me, if they’re looking for me, they must know this is a place I go.

If they find me, then what?

What do they want? What would they do?

Cattle prods, I’m thinking. They’ve got this thing for cattle prods, but that’s not going to happen to me, right? I’m a foreigner. They don’t do that shit to foreigners.

Don’t think about it, I tell myself. Just go eat some
jiaozi
.

I get to the
jiaozi
place right before it closes. It’s still pretty packed. I find myself a small table, stash my duffel on the chair opposite, and order up some
jiaozi
and a beer.

When the waitress brings me a tall, frosted bottle of premium Yanjing and a plastic tumbler, I stare at it for a moment. My mouth tastes like copper. I think about John handing me a bottle of Yanjing.

I fill up the tumbler and take a nice, foamy slug. It tastes good.

‘Fuck you, John,’ I mutter, lifting up the tumbler in a toast to the universe at large.

‘Yili,
ni hao
.’

Standing in front of me is Sloppy Song, holding her thick braid in one hand, tugging on it absently like she’s trying to remind herself of something.

‘Hey, Sloppy.’ I indicate the chair. ‘You eat yet?’

‘No, not yet. I work on new piece. No time to eat.’

‘You want to join me?’

We shift the duffel onto another chair, and Sloppy sits down across from me. When my
jiaozi
come, I order another dozen and some side dishes too. The food’s dirt-cheap here, I’ve got a wallet full of cash from British John, and maybe it’s no coincidence, Sloppy’s showing up like this.

Sloppy sips her beer, tugs on her braid, and doesn’t say very much. We quickly eat the first bowl of
jiaozi
. Midway through the boiled peanuts and
yuxiang
-flavor pork, Sloppy lets go of her hair and asks: ‘Have you heard from Lao Zhang?’

‘Not for a couple of days.’

‘Did he say where he is?’

I shake my head.

‘Ah,’ Sloppy says, and turns her focus to the fresh
jiaozi
.

‘He said I could stay at his house a while,’ I lie.

‘His house is a little messy,’ Sloppy says carefully. ‘Some people come to visit.’

‘I understand. I can do some cleaning while I’m there.’

We finish up our meal. Sloppy tries to force money on me, but I refuse. ‘Next time, you invite me,’ I say with a wave.

As I make my way to Lao Zhang’s, I’m thinking about a number of things. I’m thinking: so, I went to the
jiaozi
place, and what did I learn? Sloppy Song turned up, and it would make sense if she was in on whatever it is that Lao Zhang is doing; they’re friends, fellow artists and all. On the other hand, she’s always eating at that
jiaozi
place, and it might not mean anything at all. Maybe somebody else in the restaurant’s involved, the waitress, the cashier, the owner for all I know. Maybe there was another customer, someone I don’t even know, or one of the regulars I tend to ignore, sitting there, watching me.

Maybe the Monk just wanted to see if I’d do what he asked me to.

Why a game? But then, why not? This is China. Bulletin boards and chat rooms are monitored. The government can read your e-mails whenever it wants. If you needed a way to meet people, to talk to them, and you didn’t want the government to know, who’d think twice about a game? About avatars slinging swords and hurling spells at each other.

I stop at the corner market to buy more beer and water. There’s a young guy hanging out by the door, a
liumang
, kind of a punk, with a dirty denim jacket, spiked hair, and sunglasses, one of those guys where you can’t tell if he’s an actual delinquent or just playing at being one. He leans against the power pole, beer in hand, lost in the tunes beamed into his head through his earbuds.

But I feel his eyes on me when I leave the store.

He’s just a local rascal, I tell myself.

The courtyard of Lao Zhang’s compound is dead quiet. No electronic
erhu
sounds from the composer across from him. No sounds of partying from the sculptor’s, or the novelist/painter’s. The empty Mao jacket seems to glow in the moonlight.

Did they split, I wonder? Take off for their own versions of Bumfuck Shanxi like Chuckie? Get arrested?

If it weren’t for the moonlight, I wouldn’t be able to see a thing. I fumble around and finally manage to slip the key in the lock of Lao Zhang’s apartment door.

The lamp in the entryway has a red shade, making it look like you’re going into a club. ‘Hides the dirt,’ Lao Zhang used to say. The place smells stale, dusty, like it’s been closed up a few days.

Inside, everything looks the same. Not particularly messy. Not really neat either. Paintings stacked against the walls. Here’s the couch, here’s the TV. There’s the computer.

Do I hear something? Something in the kitchen?

‘Anyone here?’ I call out, mouth dry.

It’s just the wind, I tell myself. There’s no one home. No one but me.

Still, when I go into the kitchen, I check the utility room to make sure.

No Uighur in the closet. Now what?

I grab a beer and some water and put the rest in the fridge. There’s no way I’m going to risk using Lao Zhang’s computer, so I turn on the TV. It’s the usual stuff. Some variety show that alternates between comedians with animated sound-effect balloons blossoming above their heads and children dancing around, twirling banners. A news program about old people playing traditional Chinese instruments. A commercial for a ‘tonic’ that increases ‘man’s stamina’ with a middle-aged guy in glasses who gives us a thumbs-up as he and some babe in a red dress clink champagne flutes.

I finally settle on a
wuxia
movie. It looks pretty dumb, but I like watching all those Shaolin monks flying through the air. I drink one beer, and then I drink another, and then I think: hey, why not, let’s have a Percocet. I only get a little ways into the third bottle before I can’t keep my eyes open any more. I’m too tired to go all the way into the bedroom. I pull the ratty quilt Lao Zhang keeps on the couch over me and rest my head on the arm of the couch. On the TV, an old blind monk with a wispy gray beard that reaches down to his crotch is hurling some mystical weapon that resembles a salad spinner at the bad guys.