Jesus H. Groove
I shot a man in the back. I raised my rifle and I fired one time. The bullet traveled the length of the rifle's barrel and zipped through the air in a deadly little arc that ended just to the left of the man's spine. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.
So we're on our way back from Victoriaville.
Ray, Jesse, Simon, Dewey, Tim, Wade and Chandis and me are all stalking through the woods chatting and laughing. I'm walking next to Simon, and we're talking about the weather or baseball, I can't remember, but we're being loud. We're so far up the mountain that none of us are thinking about patrols.
We weren't two miles out of town before Chandis practically steps on this motherfucker hiding in some tall grass. Chan looks down and there's this face looking up at him, and, sweet guy that he is, stops, looks at this face in the bushes for a few seconds, just stares at this asshole. The guy in the bushes, apparently not concerned about losing the staring contest, wigs out, jumps up with a shout and takes off. Chandis just watches him run; I think I remember his mouth hanging open.
Jesse aims and fires and the guy screams and goes down. I saw his back arch when he screamed, and his back stayed arched until he hit the ground. As soon as that first asshole screams all hell breaks loose. Five of his asshole buddies bust out of the undergrowth and take flight in all directions. It's a goddamn turkey shoot. The eight of us are firing wildly. I see the first of the runners go down, and then the second. The third runner stands up and runs right into Ray, who smashes his helmeted head with the butt of his rifle; the guy just crumbles. The last two guys are running together and they manage to make the cover of a huge fallen log. They stay there, and don't return fire. Not a single shot. It's deathly quiet for a long time. Finally, one of the men stands slowly, with his arms in the air. Ray waits for the man to stand all the way up, to get a good look around, and finally to make eye contact with Ray. Then Ray shoots him down, single shot right through the neck.
So the last guy, the guy that I'll shoot in the back, he sees his buddy hit the deck. He sees the blood coming out of his friend, hears him choking to death while he bleeds out. He decides that now is the time for him to go. Can't say as I blame him. So he drops his weapon, takes off running, arms flailing like crazy, helmet and equipment harness whipping around just as crazy as his arms, flying. And he doesn't look back, just balls out flat fucking runs. I'm on him now, though. I saw his buddy stand up and go down, so I figure something has to happen with the dying guy's buddy, and sure enough, there he goes, off like a shot. Sights are already lined up even, and I squeeze that trigger ever so gently. The rifle jumps in my hands and dude does a nosedive. He doesn't get up, either.
For a few minutes we furiously beat the bushes trying to flush out anyone else. When we're satisfied that these are the only guys, Simon and Jesse start searching bodies for swag, seeing who can come up with the better prize. The rest of us start stripping weapons and ammo off of the dead. Smokes are lit, gum gets chewed, guys trying to unwind. I don't smoke, so I'm chewing gum, searching the body of the guy Ray shot in the neck. No cash in his wallet, not even pictures. I take a couple of his mags and stuff them in my ammo pouches. I'm just getting ready to start hauling his body over to the pile the others have made and out of the corner of my eye I see movement. I turn and look, and I'll be damned if the man I shot in the back ain't standing on his two feet. His helmet strap is still fastened, but the big steel dome has slid off the back of his head and looks like it's choking him. His olive drabs have a big dark stain where his blood is seeping out, and he's just standing there. He's staring like he don't got a care in this world. And then, probably because he comes to his senses, he takes off running again. This time he gets out of sight.
I think I shouted something, probably more yell than shout but maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I see him break and run, and I'm on my feet and after him. I'm running like a track star, leaping hurdles and dodging little shit that will trip me up or slow me down. I don't even see the guy for, I don't know, two or three minutes, but I keep running as fast as I can manage. Then I do see him. He bursts from some bushes I had just skirted and he runs a ninety-degree angle away from me. I shout at him to stop, and it's at this point that I realize I only have a knife, that my rifle is probably getting unspeakably filthy resting against the corpse of the man Ray shot in the neck. I start cussing, manage to get myself turned around and chasing the wounded guy again, and I'm wondering to myself how this asshole can run so fast with a hole in him like he's got. I see him misjudge the height on a log he's trying to jump over, and he falls face first into the dirt, foot hooked on the log. He's struggling to get up but he can't get his leg off the log, and I'm so close to him at this point I might as well be standing over him, breathing hard and pissed.
He turns his head and looks up at me as I walk towards him. Either it's this fall or the first one he took, but his face is totally fucked up. Specifically, his front teeth, top and bottom, are either missing or broken, and he works his jaw silently and spits up a lot of blood. He's covered with cuts. This is a truly sorry looking motherfucker. I can see he knows it, too. I've caught him, and I realize that I don't really know what to do with him. He's having a hard time breathing; he's shaking from the shock. It's pretty obvious he's not going to make it.
"Pleash," he kind of groans, "pleash don't kill me," and then he spits a lot of blood and what looks like another loose tooth. I unhook his foot from the log and he flops to the ground with a stifled scream. He keeps begging me "pleash" not to kill him, and looking at him, I realize that I don't know what the hell to do with him. Killing him would be merciful, but this close, I don't know that I can do it. He starts crying. I take off his helmet and unbuckle his equipment harness, slip it off his shoulders and roll him onto his stomach. I tell him that I'm not going hurt him, but that I don't think I can help him much, either. He doesn't seem to hear me, though.
The hole in his back is gaping. I see that the edge of his steel helmet, aside from choking him, has gouged a fair sized chunk of scalp off. I reach for his equipment harness, figuring he's got a bandage on it somewhere, but all I come up with is a handful of letters. I ask him if he's got a bandage on him, but he's still crying, loudly. I shake him, and ask again; he bobs his head no. So I rock back on my heels; there is almost zero I can do for this guy, so I tuck his letters into my jacket pocket.
I hadn't really noticed it before, but as my heart rate comes down I realize the forest is quiet and that I have gum in my mouth, which I spit out. The pine trees are swaying and creaking, and aside from the moans of the man I shot, there doesn't seem to be anyone else around, and then after a minute I can hear Ray, and he's calling me: a goatfucker, a motherfucker, a goddamned baby-eater. His voice is getting closer every time he calls out.
I'm sure he can hear the sobbing of the man I shot. So I'm not surprised when Ray's upper body appears above the log. I can tell that he is unhappy. The beard and mustache hair around his mouth is sucking in and out of his mouth with each loud breath he draws and exhales. He looks at me and then at the man I shot, ass in the air, bleeding and sobbing. He snorts and disappears. I can hear him crunching around the end of the log. He reappears and tears at the bushes that separate us. His rifle is slung diagonally across his back with the barrel pointed at the ground. The stock catches on the branches of the bush Ray is struggling through, and in a sudden fury, Ray reaches down and pulls the offending bush right out of the earth by its roots. I can hear him strain, his voice growling somewhere deep in his throat; I can see his face flush with blood. The roots crack and pop and suddenly give way. He rises slowly, lifting carefully with his legs; his hands are lost in the root ball and dirt of the bush he's unearthed. Fully erect, he heaves it out of his way. Now I know that he's really pissed.
Now, Ray has this nickel-plated .45 pistol, automatic, shiny as hell. Standing over us, his hand moves to undo the catch on the nylon holster clipped to his utility belt. His hand hovers over the catch, but he only pats the grip of the pistol and chuckles; I know he doesn't think any of this is funny. He looks at the man I shot, sobbing inconsolably on the ground and shakes his head.
"What in the fuck are you doing?" he asks, and this gets the attention of the man I shot, who stops wailing long enough to twist around and beg for his life.
"No," he pleads. He keeps repeating himself over and over as Ray stalks closer to him and kneels down. Ray gently rolls the man I shot onto his back and cradles his head in his arms. He tenderly wipes some of the dirt from the man's face, and then he places a hand over the man's mouth. Ray shushes the man, who's struggling against his hand, which is so big that it seems to cover everything but the man's dinner plate sized eyes. The man tries desperately to pry the big hand off of his face, but to no avail. His efforts weaken, and after a moment stop altogether. Ray dumps the man I shot on the ground, stands and wipes his hands on his trousers.
"This is why we don't take prisoners," he growls. "I always end up being the one who takes care of them."
I tell him that, with a hole in his back wide enough to walk through, he was pretty much a goner.
Ray looks at me for a moment. "You were just going to watch him bleed to death?" he asks, and I look at him, silent. "Man, I've done some fucked up things," he trails off and shudders. He looks down at the body.
"Jesus H., Groove. Jesus H." he says and walks away.
Simon sits next to me by the campfire that evening while the others clean their rifles and sift through the personal belongings of the men we killed. They are tossing the ugly pictures in the fire: ugly mothers, ugly wives, ugly girlfriends and ugly sisters, tucking the good ones away for later. I have the letters from the man I killed, and they are mostly intact, despite the damage my blood covered hands inflicted on the expensive purple stationary. I washed my hands earlier with water from my canteen before, but blood is still caked under my fingernails and along the edge of my cuticles.
"What you got there, Groove?" Simon asks. He reaches for the letters sitting in a loose pile on my lap, but I manage to deflect his grasping hand with my own. These are mine, I tell him.
I'd read the first letter as soon as we'd gotten back to the camp and before it got dark. It was short, a quick letter fired off before class. This is how that letter started: Dearest Michael; this is how it ended: I miss you so much! Love, Marjorie. In between the beginning and the end were updates on university life in Toronto, and the hope for a holiday visit from the now dead Michael. In my head she took on the physical qualities of my sister, who I haven't seen for some years, and her transformation into someone more familiar to me made my heart ache for home for the first time in a very long time.
I tell Simon that the letters are personal, just for me.
"You killed the guy they were personal for, man. His body is having god knows what done to it right now by various forest critters," Simon says, spluttering. He's right, of course, but they're mine, and having taken from the dead man what I wanted of his belongings, I could show or not show those belongings to whomever I wanted.
"Whatever, sicko," he says and slinks off; over towards Jesse and paws through the pile of shitty swag he's discarded.
I scan the first letter again, fold it carefully and set it aside. Out of the next carefully folded letter drops Marjorie's school photo. Not much larger than a matchbook, Marjorie smiles and sits with excellent posture against a dull brown backdrop. Her hair is dark, almost black and she has a nice face, maybe just a little pale; brown eyes, heavy eyebrows. She appears slender, nice tits. Pretty, overall, but not a beauty like some of the girls the other guys have salvaged. I tuck her picture into my breast pocket for later.
The second letter:
Dearest Michael,
It's been raining here, and the flagstones of the pavilion outside my apartment are slick. I was looking out the window this afternoon and watched a woman and her small son dart out of the building opposite mine headed for the shelter of the bus stop. After crossing half the distance, she slipped. As she was losing her balance she jerked her arms to stay upright and ended up pulling her son off of his feet, which caused her to fall pretty hard. I didn't want to, but it was so comical I had to laugh. I'm chuckling even as I write this.
I haven't heard from you in a while. Is this any way to treat your patient, loving sister? I hope things are going all right out west. Most of the campus has been up in arms over the fighting and the draft. You told me you were in a pretty quiet area of the island, so I hope that you are safe. I love you and miss you and want more than anything else in the world to see you home again. Mom and dad are worried that you haven't written or called them since you left. Dad has been quiet about it, but mom says he's really hurt that you haven't said so much as a word to him since you left. He's worried about you. Mom thinks you're mad at her. You know how paranoid she can be about that kind of thing.
If you don't want to write them, that's fine. I know you're under a lot of stress, and the last thing I want to do is add to it. Maybe a phone call next chance you get just to put their minds at ease? It will make both our lives easier, I think.
Your family loves you no matter what, Mikey, and we can't wait for you to come back to us.
Love, Marjorie
Carefully I fold the letters up and tuck them into my rucksack. Once stashed, I grab my gear and move out into the dark beyond the fire to stand my turn on guard.
So we're on our way back from Victoriaville.
Ray, Jesse, Simon, Dewey, Tim, Wade and Chandis and me are all stalking through the woods chatting and laughing. I'm walking next to Simon, and we're talking about the weather or baseball, I can't remember, but we're being loud. We're so far up the mountain that none of us are thinking about patrols.
We weren't two miles out of town before Chandis practically steps on this motherfucker hiding in some tall grass. Chan looks down and there's this face looking up at him, and, sweet guy that he is, stops, looks at this face in the bushes for a few seconds, just stares at this asshole. The guy in the bushes, apparently not concerned about losing the staring contest, wigs out, jumps up with a shout and takes off. Chandis just watches him run; I think I remember his mouth hanging open.
Jesse aims and fires and the guy screams and goes down. I saw his back arch when he screamed, and his back stayed arched until he hit the ground. As soon as that first asshole screams all hell breaks loose. Five of his asshole buddies bust out of the undergrowth and take flight in all directions. It's a goddamn turkey shoot. The eight of us are firing wildly. I see the first of the runners go down, and then the second. The third runner stands up and runs right into Ray, who smashes his helmeted head with the butt of his rifle; the guy just crumbles. The last two guys are running together and they manage to make the cover of a huge fallen log. They stay there, and don't return fire. Not a single shot. It's deathly quiet for a long time. Finally, one of the men stands slowly, with his arms in the air. Ray waits for the man to stand all the way up, to get a good look around, and finally to make eye contact with Ray. Then Ray shoots him down, single shot right through the neck.
So the last guy, the guy that I'll shoot in the back, he sees his buddy hit the deck. He sees the blood coming out of his friend, hears him choking to death while he bleeds out. He decides that now is the time for him to go. Can't say as I blame him. So he drops his weapon, takes off running, arms flailing like crazy, helmet and equipment harness whipping around just as crazy as his arms, flying. And he doesn't look back, just balls out flat fucking runs. I'm on him now, though. I saw his buddy stand up and go down, so I figure something has to happen with the dying guy's buddy, and sure enough, there he goes, off like a shot. Sights are already lined up even, and I squeeze that trigger ever so gently. The rifle jumps in my hands and dude does a nosedive. He doesn't get up, either.
For a few minutes we furiously beat the bushes trying to flush out anyone else. When we're satisfied that these are the only guys, Simon and Jesse start searching bodies for swag, seeing who can come up with the better prize. The rest of us start stripping weapons and ammo off of the dead. Smokes are lit, gum gets chewed, guys trying to unwind. I don't smoke, so I'm chewing gum, searching the body of the guy Ray shot in the neck. No cash in his wallet, not even pictures. I take a couple of his mags and stuff them in my ammo pouches. I'm just getting ready to start hauling his body over to the pile the others have made and out of the corner of my eye I see movement. I turn and look, and I'll be damned if the man I shot in the back ain't standing on his two feet. His helmet strap is still fastened, but the big steel dome has slid off the back of his head and looks like it's choking him. His olive drabs have a big dark stain where his blood is seeping out, and he's just standing there. He's staring like he don't got a care in this world. And then, probably because he comes to his senses, he takes off running again. This time he gets out of sight.
I think I shouted something, probably more yell than shout but maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I see him break and run, and I'm on my feet and after him. I'm running like a track star, leaping hurdles and dodging little shit that will trip me up or slow me down. I don't even see the guy for, I don't know, two or three minutes, but I keep running as fast as I can manage. Then I do see him. He bursts from some bushes I had just skirted and he runs a ninety-degree angle away from me. I shout at him to stop, and it's at this point that I realize I only have a knife, that my rifle is probably getting unspeakably filthy resting against the corpse of the man Ray shot in the neck. I start cussing, manage to get myself turned around and chasing the wounded guy again, and I'm wondering to myself how this asshole can run so fast with a hole in him like he's got. I see him misjudge the height on a log he's trying to jump over, and he falls face first into the dirt, foot hooked on the log. He's struggling to get up but he can't get his leg off the log, and I'm so close to him at this point I might as well be standing over him, breathing hard and pissed.
He turns his head and looks up at me as I walk towards him. Either it's this fall or the first one he took, but his face is totally fucked up. Specifically, his front teeth, top and bottom, are either missing or broken, and he works his jaw silently and spits up a lot of blood. He's covered with cuts. This is a truly sorry looking motherfucker. I can see he knows it, too. I've caught him, and I realize that I don't really know what to do with him. He's having a hard time breathing; he's shaking from the shock. It's pretty obvious he's not going to make it.
"Pleash," he kind of groans, "pleash don't kill me," and then he spits a lot of blood and what looks like another loose tooth. I unhook his foot from the log and he flops to the ground with a stifled scream. He keeps begging me "pleash" not to kill him, and looking at him, I realize that I don't know what the hell to do with him. Killing him would be merciful, but this close, I don't know that I can do it. He starts crying. I take off his helmet and unbuckle his equipment harness, slip it off his shoulders and roll him onto his stomach. I tell him that I'm not going hurt him, but that I don't think I can help him much, either. He doesn't seem to hear me, though.
The hole in his back is gaping. I see that the edge of his steel helmet, aside from choking him, has gouged a fair sized chunk of scalp off. I reach for his equipment harness, figuring he's got a bandage on it somewhere, but all I come up with is a handful of letters. I ask him if he's got a bandage on him, but he's still crying, loudly. I shake him, and ask again; he bobs his head no. So I rock back on my heels; there is almost zero I can do for this guy, so I tuck his letters into my jacket pocket.
I hadn't really noticed it before, but as my heart rate comes down I realize the forest is quiet and that I have gum in my mouth, which I spit out. The pine trees are swaying and creaking, and aside from the moans of the man I shot, there doesn't seem to be anyone else around, and then after a minute I can hear Ray, and he's calling me: a goatfucker, a motherfucker, a goddamned baby-eater. His voice is getting closer every time he calls out.
I'm sure he can hear the sobbing of the man I shot. So I'm not surprised when Ray's upper body appears above the log. I can tell that he is unhappy. The beard and mustache hair around his mouth is sucking in and out of his mouth with each loud breath he draws and exhales. He looks at me and then at the man I shot, ass in the air, bleeding and sobbing. He snorts and disappears. I can hear him crunching around the end of the log. He reappears and tears at the bushes that separate us. His rifle is slung diagonally across his back with the barrel pointed at the ground. The stock catches on the branches of the bush Ray is struggling through, and in a sudden fury, Ray reaches down and pulls the offending bush right out of the earth by its roots. I can hear him strain, his voice growling somewhere deep in his throat; I can see his face flush with blood. The roots crack and pop and suddenly give way. He rises slowly, lifting carefully with his legs; his hands are lost in the root ball and dirt of the bush he's unearthed. Fully erect, he heaves it out of his way. Now I know that he's really pissed.
Now, Ray has this nickel-plated .45 pistol, automatic, shiny as hell. Standing over us, his hand moves to undo the catch on the nylon holster clipped to his utility belt. His hand hovers over the catch, but he only pats the grip of the pistol and chuckles; I know he doesn't think any of this is funny. He looks at the man I shot, sobbing inconsolably on the ground and shakes his head.
"What in the fuck are you doing?" he asks, and this gets the attention of the man I shot, who stops wailing long enough to twist around and beg for his life.
"No," he pleads. He keeps repeating himself over and over as Ray stalks closer to him and kneels down. Ray gently rolls the man I shot onto his back and cradles his head in his arms. He tenderly wipes some of the dirt from the man's face, and then he places a hand over the man's mouth. Ray shushes the man, who's struggling against his hand, which is so big that it seems to cover everything but the man's dinner plate sized eyes. The man tries desperately to pry the big hand off of his face, but to no avail. His efforts weaken, and after a moment stop altogether. Ray dumps the man I shot on the ground, stands and wipes his hands on his trousers.
"This is why we don't take prisoners," he growls. "I always end up being the one who takes care of them."
I tell him that, with a hole in his back wide enough to walk through, he was pretty much a goner.
Ray looks at me for a moment. "You were just going to watch him bleed to death?" he asks, and I look at him, silent. "Man, I've done some fucked up things," he trails off and shudders. He looks down at the body.
"Jesus H., Groove. Jesus H." he says and walks away.
Simon sits next to me by the campfire that evening while the others clean their rifles and sift through the personal belongings of the men we killed. They are tossing the ugly pictures in the fire: ugly mothers, ugly wives, ugly girlfriends and ugly sisters, tucking the good ones away for later. I have the letters from the man I killed, and they are mostly intact, despite the damage my blood covered hands inflicted on the expensive purple stationary. I washed my hands earlier with water from my canteen before, but blood is still caked under my fingernails and along the edge of my cuticles.
"What you got there, Groove?" Simon asks. He reaches for the letters sitting in a loose pile on my lap, but I manage to deflect his grasping hand with my own. These are mine, I tell him.
I'd read the first letter as soon as we'd gotten back to the camp and before it got dark. It was short, a quick letter fired off before class. This is how that letter started: Dearest Michael; this is how it ended: I miss you so much! Love, Marjorie. In between the beginning and the end were updates on university life in Toronto, and the hope for a holiday visit from the now dead Michael. In my head she took on the physical qualities of my sister, who I haven't seen for some years, and her transformation into someone more familiar to me made my heart ache for home for the first time in a very long time.
I tell Simon that the letters are personal, just for me.
"You killed the guy they were personal for, man. His body is having god knows what done to it right now by various forest critters," Simon says, spluttering. He's right, of course, but they're mine, and having taken from the dead man what I wanted of his belongings, I could show or not show those belongings to whomever I wanted.
"Whatever, sicko," he says and slinks off; over towards Jesse and paws through the pile of shitty swag he's discarded.
I scan the first letter again, fold it carefully and set it aside. Out of the next carefully folded letter drops Marjorie's school photo. Not much larger than a matchbook, Marjorie smiles and sits with excellent posture against a dull brown backdrop. Her hair is dark, almost black and she has a nice face, maybe just a little pale; brown eyes, heavy eyebrows. She appears slender, nice tits. Pretty, overall, but not a beauty like some of the girls the other guys have salvaged. I tuck her picture into my breast pocket for later.
The second letter:
Dearest Michael,
It's been raining here, and the flagstones of the pavilion outside my apartment are slick. I was looking out the window this afternoon and watched a woman and her small son dart out of the building opposite mine headed for the shelter of the bus stop. After crossing half the distance, she slipped. As she was losing her balance she jerked her arms to stay upright and ended up pulling her son off of his feet, which caused her to fall pretty hard. I didn't want to, but it was so comical I had to laugh. I'm chuckling even as I write this.
I haven't heard from you in a while. Is this any way to treat your patient, loving sister? I hope things are going all right out west. Most of the campus has been up in arms over the fighting and the draft. You told me you were in a pretty quiet area of the island, so I hope that you are safe. I love you and miss you and want more than anything else in the world to see you home again. Mom and dad are worried that you haven't written or called them since you left. Dad has been quiet about it, but mom says he's really hurt that you haven't said so much as a word to him since you left. He's worried about you. Mom thinks you're mad at her. You know how paranoid she can be about that kind of thing.
If you don't want to write them, that's fine. I know you're under a lot of stress, and the last thing I want to do is add to it. Maybe a phone call next chance you get just to put their minds at ease? It will make both our lives easier, I think.
Your family loves you no matter what, Mikey, and we can't wait for you to come back to us.
Love, Marjorie
Carefully I fold the letters up and tuck them into my rucksack. Once stashed, I grab my gear and move out into the dark beyond the fire to stand my turn on guard.