Problem with war, Oates also figured, was that Americans didn’t have the sort of national psyche necessary for the prolonged battle and body count of combat. Not just Ma and Pa Kettle on the homefront either, but the soldiers themselves. You had a generation weaned on fast food and instant gratification with synthetic values and the attention span of most toddlers. These boys and girls were spoiled and selfish and shallow, the idea of sacrifice was unthinkable to their little minds programmed by MTV, Nike, and the NBA. The way Oates saw it, these kids were good-hearted, but soft and gutless and just as lacking as the name brands they worshipped. No substance, no discipline, no nothing. Back in ‘60’s, your average ma and pa supported the war in Vietnam even though they knew it was the greatest clusterfuck since McCarthyism. They had stood against the hippies who threatened their old school values. But even those hippies they hated had stood for something. They had drawn a line in the sand and they were not going to back down from it: war is shit and the society that supports it and turns a blind eye to the corporate-political deceit behind it is the biggest shit of all.
But this generation?
Hell, they didn’t stand for anything. They just didn’t have the gumption or perseverance necessary. Paris fucking Hilton was a good representation for the entire generation: easy, empty, and heading for a crash.
“Well, well, well,” Oates said. “I see we all got our fancy-ass berets on and that makes me feel like I’m part of the elite. You feeling elite today, Hinks?”
“Yes sir!”
Oates laughed. “What you got under that beret tonight, Hinks? One day your hair’s purple, the next it’s green. What kind of crazy faggot ‘do you sporting tonight?”
“Just my natural color, Sarge.”
Now that was something wasn’t it? When you had to ask some grunt what color he was dying his mother- humping hair?
The boats moved along at a slow clip, sliding through the murky waters and bumping through the bobbing debris. River Town wasn’t entirely dark. The streetlights were still working in most of the neighborhoods, but many were out. The buildings were mostly high and dark. Storefronts empty and washed by shadow. Cars and minivans sunk right up to their door handles, radio antennas rising from the slop like swamp reeds. Looked like some kind of surreal ghost town out there with water flooded up over porches and licking against windows. The boats moved on, the running lights glowing at their bows, searchlights casting a few questing fingers through the ebon byways. The boats were all Zodiacs, silent-runners. About all you heard was a throb and a thrum as they passed, the water splashing in their wakes. They’d been designed for Special Forces and the flood was the only way these knotheads of the National Gourd would ever see the inside of them, Oates knew.
“Don’t look like any life out there at all,” Neiderhauser said. “What the hell are we supposed to find in this mess?”
“Your mother’s virginity,” Oates told him.
“Sarge? Why you always dissing my mother all the time?” Neiderhauser wanted to know.
“Because I love and respect the dear woman, son. Weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of serving with you. And where would this man’s Army be without you?”
Hinks giggled at that. “That’s good,” he said.
“Your mother have any children that lived, Hinks?”
“No sir…I mean, yes sir. I did.”
Oates chuckled. “Don’t be so sure about that, son.”
“This is bullshit, Sarge. It’s just a waste of time,” Neiderhauser said.
“Is it now?”
“Sure, Sarge. We ain’t gonna find nothing but bodies from that cemetery. Not shit else.”
“I see. Is that your professional opinion of the matter?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Quit your whining, son. And I do mean quit it,” Oates told him. “This isn’t making my shorts rise either, but it’s gotta be done. Beats the shit out of patrolling Baghdad. Now, we got lots of missing people in this goddamn city and it would make me very happy to find a few so their mothers could maybe get some sleep. So don’t you dare piss on my boots, soldier, there’s plenty out there who’re suffering and now it’s your turn.”
That shut Neiderhauser up.
Oates was not, in general, a very compassionate sort, so when he talked like that, you knew he meant it. Which meant you’d better toe the line or they’d be pulling about twenty feet of it out of your ass surgically, compliments of First Sergeant Henry T. Oates.
Hinks was at the wheel, doing whatever the man said. That was how you did it. “Sarge? That true about that missing bus full of kids?”
“It is. And despite the fact that I am one ornery, full-mouthed, neo-fascist, intolerant war-mongering son of a St. Louis whore, it would give me great pleasure to deliver those young-uns unharmed unto their families. I can’t say I’ve done a lot to help in this life and far too much to hurt, but that would give me satisfaction.” Oates looked over at Neiderhauser. “And if you do not want to assist me in this, Neiderhumper, then I would just as soon as sodomize you with this here oar and drop your queer white ass into the drink, God bless America and Union Carbide.”
Neiderhauser grumbled something and Hinks laughed. But as usual with Oates, he wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to laugh. Sometimes you just never knew. Was Sergeant Oates the funniest man since Larry the Cable Guy or was he was just a mean-spirited asshole like most people thought?
They came to a little two-story house in a block of the same with lots of nice hedges barely breaking the surface of the water. A boat was tied to the porch. Oates figured that was a sign of life. He ordered the boats to pull up by it, which they did after a few minutes spent bumping into each other, the troops swearing at each other and blaming all but themselves.
“Okay, you god-blessing idiots,” Oates told them, “happy hour is over. Get your shit together and get it together now. By Christ, you boys drive like I fuck.”
“Shit, Sarge, Hopper rammed right into us, wasn’t our fault,” Jones said.
“Hell I did.”
“All right, all right, girls,” Oates said. “Quit blaming the wreck on the train. Jones? You get this one. Tie off your craft and search that house. You find any beauticians in there, you tell ‘em Hinks here could use an avocado facial and a finger-wave.”
The guardsmen were all wearing their fatigues with rubber hip boots and rain ponchos. They had their M-16s, too, but Oates forbid them from loading those lifetakers. With this bunch, he figured that would be like giving a blind man a chainsaw in a crowded room. He was the only one with a loaded weapon and that’s how it had to be with these monkeys.
Jones tied off the boat with a mooring line made out of nylon rope looped through the bow D-ring. He tied it off on the porch railing. Strickland and Chernick followed him through the slop and up onto the porch.
“Water smells like shit,” Strickland said.
“Then it must remind you of sex with your boyfriend,” Oates told him. “Now get humping.”
Jones went through the usual protocol of knocking on the door, then he just went in, the door partly ajar. It took the three of them to push it open all the way. Then they disappeared inside. Oates could see their flashlight beams bobbing around in there through the windows, hear them calling out and identifying themselves. At least they hadn’t forgotten to do that.
And the waiting began. A minute, then two that bled into five.
14
“How long is this gonna take ‘em?” Neiderhauser said.
Oates turned and looked at him. “You on the rag tonight, corporal? Heavy flow day or what? You wanna change your fucking tampon, we’ll turn our backs.”
Hinks laughed.
Neiderhauser sighed. “I’m just saying, Sarge, that we’ve got a lot of real estate to cover here. We need to do
