Absurdistan

“Walk around and look busy!”

“Here come that four-hour lunch!”

“Here come that four-dollar blow job!”

“Here come Cliffey’s sister!”

“Hey, sorry, big fella,” said the guy next to me, his mouth exuding bourbon and fresh mint, as if he were a man-sized mint julep. “Looks like I jes’ tumped all over yer foot.”

“No worries,” I said, shaking off my sandal. “My manservant will clean it up.”

“Did you hear that, y’all?” cried the one called Cliffey, a short, beleaguered man who nonetheless seemed in charge. “His manservant gonna clean it up. I think we got a Bechtel senior manager here!”

“All them Bechtel people’s up in San Francisco. Forget the manservants, they got man lovers!”

“I’m not from this Bechtel,” I said timidly. “And I’m not a homosexual. I’m a Belgian. I represent Mr. Nanabragov and the SCROD.”

“Nanabragov?” said my pissmate. “You mean Twitchy? Whut’s up with that hombre? He looks like the dog been keepin’ him under the porch.”

“Naw, he a straight shooter,” Cliffey said. “He’s all about the LOGCAP. We do good business with him. And they love him over at DoD.”

“What’s DoD?” I asked.

“Department of Defense. Where you been, son?”

“Ain’t I seen you with Nanabragov’s daughter?” another pisser asked me. “That little Nana Nanny Goat of his. You were walkin’ down the Boulevard ah National Unity with yer hand in her back pocket! You two hitched?”

I shook my head. “No, we’re not married yet, sir.”

“Thatta boy! He’s eatin’ supper before he even say grace.”

“What’s your name, son?” Cliffey said.

“Misha Vainberg,” I said.

“Iner’t yer daddy the one who sold us that two-thousand-pound screw?”

“Um, maybe,” I said.

“Shoot, anyone who can pull the wool over us like that deserve to be the gov’nor. Your daddy was rarer than hen’s teeth, son. You oughta be proud of him.”

The others at the piss trough drawled their approval of my Beloved Papa.

“I am proud of my daddy,” I said with a drawl of my own. “Excuse me, fellers. I think I’m all done pissing here.”

I left the outhouse, relieved in every sense. The KBR people were all right with me. It was true that Halliburton in general was maligned among a certain American set, but perhaps these coastal liberals didn’t understand the cultural relativism involved in being from Texas.

There was only one term I still didn’t understand: LOGCAP. Perhaps I could get more information out of a Halliburton parrot. I found a particularly talkative specimen, his tail plumage the murky green of American currency. “LOGCAP,” I said to the bird.

“Cost plus! Cost plus!” he squawked back.

“LOGCAP! LOGCAP!” I shouted at the parrot.

He lifted up his wing and did a number with his claw. “Kwaak!” he said. “DoD!”

“Department of Defense?” I said. “I don’t get it, birdy. There are no American troops in Absurdistan. We’re out of the news cycle. No one even knows this place exists.”

The parrot started strutting purposefully from one end of his cage to the other. He lifted up his beak so that his profile mirrored my own. “Look busy! Look busy!” he said. “Cost overrun! Kwaak! ”

Larry Zartarian sidled up to me. The poor hotel manager looked like he had spent the last week hiding out in a Finnish bunker. I was reminded of one of Ice Cube’s lyrics: “I ain’t down with the paleface…” “It’s no good, Misha,” he said, nervously rubbing his hands against his trousers. His mother snorted assent from behind one of the totem poles.

“What’s no good, Larry?”

“The SCROD has instructed me to clear off the rooftop by tomorrow.”

“So?”

“I got a team of Ukrainian mercenaries just checked in to the hotel. And Volodya, that ex-KGB asshole, has been snooping around the roof with some kind of telescope. They’re getting ready for something big.”

I recalled what I had just heard at the pissing trough: Ukrainian boys gonna start shootin’ up the inferstructure.

“The parrot mentioned cost plus,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“ ‘Cost plus’ is one of the stipulations of the LOGCAP,” Zartarian said.

“And what’s this LOGCAP?”

Zaratarian rummaged through his pockets until he found a crumpled piece of paper. It was a printout from a U.S. government website, evidently from the days when the Internet was still allowed in Absurdistan. He pointed to the relevant section.

LOGCAP—the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program—is a U.S. Army initiative for peacetime planning for the use of civilian contractors in wartime and other contingencies. These contractors will perform selected services to support U.S. forces in support of Department of Defense (DoD) missions. Use of contractors in a theater of operations allows the release of military units for other missions or to fill support shortfalls. This program provides the army with additional means to adequately support the current and programmed forces.

Peacetime planning? Theater of operations? Programmed forces? “What the hell does this mean, Larry?” I asked Zartarian. “And what does it have to do with KBR or Absurdistan?”

“LOGCAP means KBR is the exclusive provider of support services for the U.S. Army in a time of war,” Larry explained. “They had the same thing in Somalia and Bosnia. ‘Cost plus’ means they get a percentage of whatever money they spend. So the more KBR spends, the more they make. They can put in marble outhouses, monogrammed towels, endless training sessions, supply trucks just sitting around doing nothing. It’s like a blank check from the Defense Department.”

“But the U.S. Army isn’t here,” I said. “And this isn’t Somalia or Bosnia. We’ve got oil here. We’ve got Figa-6. We’ve got a Sevo minority struggling against Svani oppression.”

“It’s not my job to interfere in the affairs of hotel guests,” Zartarian said, glancing briefly at his mother, still hiding behind the totem pole, “but I would just stay out of this whole thing, Misha. Don’t get involved with the SCROD.”

“Yes, you’re correct,” I said to the sweltering Hyatt manager. “It’s not your job to interfere in my affairs. Please excuse me, Larry.”

I went to look for my Nana. I found her arm-wrestling her father at a table reserved for the SCROD. Beneath her heavy face and round bosom, Nana had quite a sizable forearm, all muscle and heft. She looked like she had a lock on Twitchy, but at the last minute, her father pulled through and overpowered her, slamming her plump brown hand against the table.

“You’re a brute!” Nana cried, pulling away and then rubbing her injured hand.

“Six kisses,” her father said. “You owe me six kisses. Come on, now. Be a big girl. You made a bet, now pay up.”

Nana sighed, forced a smile, and dutifully began to apply her mouth to her father’s face. “Hello, friends,” I said to my new family.

“Ah, it’s Misha Vainberg, the hero of our time!” Mr. Nanabragov said, wiping off his daughter’s saliva. He pulled up a big plastic chair and squeezed my neck paternally. “We’ve got some good news for you, little son. I’m about to give you as much joy as my daughter’s been giving you. Would you mind if Parka Mook and I drop by your suite tomorrow? We’ll have a nice talk.”

“I would be honored, Mr. Nanabragov,” I said. “There’s always water in my well for you to drink.”

“Very good,” Nanabragov said. “Oh, look! Here come the hookers!”