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I sighed, “Chicken Caesar.”
“Chicken. Fucking. Caesar,” Libby confirmed.
I left a week later.
Seven
Axel
At last, the pickup approached the security gates of the Green Zone and I raised my hand to signal to the first round of guards. We nodded to each other as the truck slowed down for inspection.
“The Prom King returns,” one of the young guards joked at the inspection point.
They guys had taken to calling me Prom King on account of the whole “chaperone” thing. I had come to expect this casual tone from fellow officers—even though it went completely against my high level training—but they didn’t need to know that and besides, the more I blended in, the better.
I nodded to the young guy, “Damn right I’m the Prom King. Who’d you take as your date to your prom, ‘yer cousin?”
The other guys laughed and smacked him on his back.
The truck pulled forward and I noticed a couple of soldiers playing a pick-up game of football with some of the local kids. It was a comically weak attempt at American Football as we know it, but the mood was light and the kids loved it despite the fact that it produced endless clouds of dust and total confusion about who goes where. Those poor kids, I thought, their childhood was the complete opposite of what I’d known when I was their age.
I was from one of those states that fussy northeast folks didn’t visit much, and that was just fine by me. More mountain range for us, I had always thought. Give me open skies, hunting, and real Americans any day. I learned how to shoot before I learned how to drive, and I drove at nine years old. I grew up in a place where people got milk from cows, not almonds.
My hometown wasn’t that small though, but it wasn’t a city either, it was the type of place where family and country came first. Always. Then again, it was easy for me to love where I came from, my Dad was the mayor and I was his sidekick. His partner, he always called me.
I had the perfect upbringing for a rowdy, adventurous boy. Out there in nature, I learned how to be a man while still gettin’ to have a childhood. There was no Google for answers or Facebook for fake friends, you had to figure it out on your own, learn how to be at peace with your thoughts.
Amidst this dry, punishing heat, I longed for those cool nights under the stars, camping with my family or exploring the woods with the twins—my little brother and sister—untameable little monsters. They followed me everywhere and together we had amazing adventures on my family’s ranch. Camping, hunting, and just being at one with the wild, as my dad used to say.
I always thought of nature as a second mother to me and I respected her immensely. She taught me to be patient and she taught me to rely on myself which came in handy, because on my fifteenth birthday it all came crashing down.
Or rather, it all came burning down.
Eight
Honor
“Shouldn’t we get some sort of priority treatment?” huffed the other female journalist who had previously been bawling but now seemed more concerned with getting back in time for lunch. “You know, military escort and all?”
I saw the soldier smirk cutely and roll his eyes as he pretended not to hear her but honestly, I sort of wondered the same thing. I wasn’t scared, just covered in sand and a bit weary from bouncing up and down on the back of that truck for the last couple hours.
It had been a long morning and I couldn’t wait to dive into a hot shower and my cozy bed (the only truly clean, non-sandy place on this whole continent) and spend the rest of the day editing photos and writing up a story for my editor.
Overall I had managed to get a good pace going with work: I had to file two stories a week on different aspects of “life in the Green Zone” and so far, I’d interviewed military doctors, a couple nurses, a handful of soldiers of all ages and rank, and the canteen’s head cook who led the team that made food for some two thousand personnel. My editor was happy with the work I was turning out and although I still felt like I hadn’t landed that big story, the one that would put me on the map journalistically, I was confident that my time would come. I just had to keep focused.
A couple minutes later the truck stopped abruptly and I realized I had zoned out. The trip was over. We were right in front of my apartment and The Chaperone was standing impatiently on the ground—waiting for me to hop out of the truck so that they could continue dropping off passengers.
“Oh, sorry,” I said awkwardly.
I struggled to get up as I was still wedged in between two other passengers plus I had my heavy camera equipment wrapped around my body.
The Chaperone didn’t acknowledge my apology but instead opened the tailgate with one hand so that I could hop off the back of the truck. I ungracefully edged my butt along the bed of the pickup towards him, dragging my equipment in the process.
“Poetry in motion, huh?” I tried to make light of the situation.
Nothing.
This is so embarrassing.
