“Sadiki! Sabah an-noor!” Ali shouted.
“Ali Dudeki,” Reading croaked, not looking up from his game.
“Fuck shit, shut up!” Ahmed barked, slapping Ali on the back of his head. “Yeeeeeah,” he crooned, twisting his head back over his hump.
“Ahmed, sadiki,” I said, sitting up. “Shaku maku?”
“Very good, very good, yeeeeah! No problem!”
“Sadiki,” Ali said, lifting his eyebrows and pointing at my bag, “you bring ne ficky-ficky?”
“No, Ali. No ficky-ficky.”
“Tomorrow and tomorrow, Sadiki? Any o’clock? You bring ne ficky-ficky?”
“Maybe if you’re good.”
Ali smiled at me, then tiptoed over to Reading. Reading, absorbed in his game, seemed not to notice the big man as he reached out slowly for Reading’s nuts. Then, in a swift blur, Reading dropped his Game Boy, grabbed Ali’s wrist, and lunged up, pulling his arm around his head and lifting him into the air, then bending him onto the concrete. Reading fell on the big hadji, pinning him with his knees, slapping his face.
“Shit fuck, shit ass, shit!” shouted Ahmed.
“You mota mota good, huh?” Reading asked Ali, slapping him, “You mota me, huh? Mota mota? Ali Dudeki? Ali Menuch?”
Ali grinned and tried to cover his face and buck Reading off, but Reading had him wrapped up. “You fucked with the wrong motherfucker, Ali. Now you’re getting zip-zipped.”
“No, no,” Ali begged. “No zip-zip. Sadiki no zip-zip.”
“Then knock it the fuck off!”
“No zip-zip. Ali no zip-zip.”
“Alright, fucker,” Reading said, standing and helping Ali to his feet. “No zip-zip—this time!”
Ali stood up and smiled shyly at Reading. “Sadiki,” he said, very seriously.
“What, fucker?”
“Tomorrow and tomorrow, you bring ne ficky-ficky? Any o’clock?”
“No, you fucking faggot.”
“Tomorrow you, you, meshi meshi, ficky-ficky?” Ali pointed at Reading, then at himself, then at the gate.
“What?”
Ali made moon eyes at Reading. “You, you, meshi meshi? Mota? Mota?”
“I think he wants you to go home with him,” I said.
“No fucking mota, dudeki!”
“Yeeeeeah!” Ahmed crooned. “Shit! Fuck! Shut up!”
Ahmed the hunchback went outside and started talking to the ICDC. Ali sat on the edge of my cot until I kicked him in the hip and he walked off, staring at Reading, who resumed his game. After a minute, Ahmed called Ali away.
“Fucking fag,” Reading muttered.
Explosions in the night. We tumble out of bed and throw on our armor and wait for more mortars. Silence. Half an hour later someone comes and tells us stand down. The next day there’s a pit gouged out of the earth behind the guard shack.
Two EOD sergeants and a first sergeant from DIVARTY come down and do crater analysis, stepping in and out of the hole, divining esoteric data.
The radio squawked: “MEEEOW.”
“What the fuck?”
“MEEEOW.”
“It’s the fuckers in the towers.”
“MEEEOW.”
“THIS IS RED STEEL SEVEN. WHOEVER’S DOING THAT, YOU BETTER KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW.”
“MEEEOW.”
“Fucking retards.”
“LIMIT YOUR RADIO TRAFFIC TO ESSENTIAL MESSAGES. I’M SERIOUS. RED STEEL SEVEN OUT.”
“OR I’LL FUCK YOU IN YOUR EYEBALLS! FUCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!”
“THIS IS RED STEEL SEVEN. KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF. RIGHT NOW. I’M SERIOUS.”
“MEEEOW.”
Clouds hung low over the mucky earth, turning everything gray. Shots had been fired at the guard tower in a drive-by, so everyone was on alert. Staff Sergeant Reynolds warned us Sergeant Major might be coming through. Reading worked his thumbs on the Game Boy.
“What fucking day is it?”
“Today?”
“No. Yesterday, motherfucker.”
“Yesterday was the day before.”
“What day today?”
“Fucking shit day.”
“Tuesday?”
“Whatever.”
Two ICDC guards sat smoking, flipping through my copy of the Vanity Fair issue with the big Michael Jackson exposé. One of the ICDC was younger, chubby, trying to grow a mustache and failing, the other was slightly older, his face pocked with acne scars. I watched them look at the fashion shots, the pictures of Neverland Ranch, the ads for J. Lo perfume and Patek Philippe watches.
“You like America?” I asked.
“Al-Ameriki?” the younger one said.
“Yeah. America good?”
“Yes, al-Ameriki good,” he beamed.
“Michael Jackson good?”
“Yes yes, Michael Jackson. Ee-hee. Very good.”
“You like Bush? Bush good?”
“Boosh good yes.”
“How ’bout Saddam? You like Saddam?”
“Saddam no good. Saddam Ali Baba,” the older one said, stamping his foot and spitting.
“You Shi’a?”
“Sunni.”
“Ayatollah Sistani good?”
He shrugged.
“Moqtada al-Sadr good?”
“Al-Sadr very good,” the young one said.
“Shi’a?” I pointed at the young one.
“Naam. Shi’a.” He pointed at himself.
“Bush good, no Saddam?”
“Saddam no good.”
“Bush no good,” I said, shaking my head. “Bush Ali Baba.”
“No!” the older one said, aghast.
“Saddam, Bush, same-same,” I said. “Ali Baba, Ali Baba.”
“No, Boosh good,” the young one said.
“Ali Baba,” I said.
The older one pointed at me. “You Christ-ian?”
“La. No god.”
He seemed cross: “Yes God.”
“La.”
He shook his head. “No good.”
There was a bang at the door. I pointed at the young one and pointed at the door, got up and grabbed my rifle, and followed him to it. “F’tal bob,” I said, and he unlatched the gate and put his shoulder to and slid it open.
A middle-aged hadji stood outside in a dishdasha. A couple more stood behind him.
“Salaam a-leykum,” I said.
“Leykum-a-salaam,” he said back, bowing slightly.
“What’s up?”
He started talking Arabic, then “Boom, boom, koom-ballah. Ali Baba.” He gestured back for one of his friends to come up.
“We have information,” the guy said. “Bomb and bad yes.”
“Okay, hold on.” I turned back to Reading. “Fucker,” I shouted. He looked up from his game.
“What?”
“Get on the radio and see if you can get a translator.”
“For what?”
“This guy says he has information.”
“About what?”
“About your mom. Fucking call somebody.”
Reading picked up the walkie-talkie and called Staff Sergeant Reynolds. They talked back and forth for a minute then Reading shouted, “Sergeant Reynolds gonna go see if he can get one.”
“Call up Red Steel Main and see what they say.”
“What I tell ’em?”
“Tell them we have an Iraqi who says he has information on a bomb.”
“He got a bomb?”
“He has information on a bomb.”
“Information.”
“Yeah.”
“So what?”
“So call Red Steel Main.”
He picked up the other walkie-talkie and called Red Steel Main. He talked to them for a few minutes, then shouted at me: “They say he gotta go to Foxtrot Gate.”
“That’s the one on the south side, right?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Staff Sergeant Reynolds called Reading back so I waited, and when they were done Reading shouted, “He said he can’t find a translator, and I told him Red Steel Main said send him to Foxtrot Gate and he said that’s fine.”