“You look like you could use it,” he said.
“Have some Kool-Aid,” Clip said. He handed me a water bottle filled with orange Kool-Aid. It was so sweet I almost threw up. I hadn’t tasted anything sweet in a long time.
“They’re worked up about something,” Mark said, looking through his binoculars at the house.
“Do you think they’ve seen us?” I asked.
“No,” Mark said. “They don’t get out of the compound much. There is only one guard, and he’s usually asleep.”
“Look at this motherfucker,” said Jordan, kicking a tarantula the color of sand into the center of the circle.
I stood quickly. Those things could jump. Everyone was on their feet, stepping away from the spider.
“Holy shit,” said Jordan nervously. “Look at the size of that thing.” It was the largest spider I’d ever seen.
Jordan threw his knife at it but missed. The handle of the knife brushed the spider, and it moved around frantically. Clip prevented its escape with a long stick.
Then Mark threw his knife at it and missed as well. Candid tried and he missed too. Finally, Clip smacked it with the stick and it popped up into the air.
“Holy shit,” said Jordan.
Clip walked over and stabbed his bayonet through the tarantula’s fat body. Its legs churned, but the blade was stuck firmly in the ground. When Clip pulled the blade from the ground, the spider was still on it. Then he took out a lighter and lit the spider’s legs on fire. It quickly curled into a ball.
“Stop fucking around,” said Mark. “That’s all we need is for your stupid fucking shit to give us away.” And with that he went back to watching the house. The sun was going down, so he used a hand to shade the binoculars. Then he put them down.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“Sitting around after dinner,” he said. “After that they usually go off and fuck a few women and fall asleep. Hell of a life.”
“You get laid while you were in town?” asked Candid.
I tried to ignore him, but he stared at me, waiting for an answer. The others turned to see what I’d say as well. “No,” I said finally.
“There are some gorgeous women in this country,” Clip said. The others laughed at this, but I wanted to tell them there were.
I slept for a while, and then Clip woke me by pounding firmly on my helmet. “You’re doing the kickin’ chicken,” he said. He slapped me on the helmet again.
I took it off. I couldn’t remember ever having been more tired. The wound on my head was throbbing. Clip slapped my head again, laughing. I wanted to kill him.
“We move in an hour,” said Mark.
Everyone grew quiet.
“We heard you killed some kids,” said Clip. “That’s what they’re saying back at camp. I thought you said you didn’t kill anybody.”
“I didn’t fire a shot,” I said.
“Who cares?” Mark said, turning toward me.
“I think we should know who we’re helping here,” Clip said.
“What’ve you got for us, Stantz?” said Jordan.
“It doesn’t matter,” Clip said, “I’m just asking.”
“I didn’t shoot anybody,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Mark. “Leave him alone.”
Clip put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. What happens here stays here, right?”
“Sure,” I said. It made this whole thing sound like a vacation.
“Bad things happen in threes,” Clip said, to no one in particular.
“That’s not true,” I said. “Bad things just happen.”
Jordan had fallen asleep sitting up. His head listed heavily from side to side. Simon and Nichols snuck out to check our perimeter and the perimeter of the house.
“Tell me about the last woman you were in love with,” said Clip. He looked at me from under his helmet, and his brown eyes were bright for a moment, as if he was remembering his own.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a game we play,” he said. “To pass the time.”
I didn’t want to tell them about the last woman I’d loved. I didn’t want them to know anything about me, and especially not that. Not a glimpse, not a whisper, not a sordid desire. It felt profane to even think of her in this place. Those memories were sacred.
“Why the last love?” I asked. “The last love never seems to matter as much as the first.”
“Whoa,” said Clip sarcastically. “We got us a real fucking genius here.” Clip and Mark laughed.
“No really,” Mark said, “who was the last woman you fell in love with?” He wanted an answer.
I lied. “Amy.” She was the first girl I loved. The first girl I ever kissed.
“Amy what?” Clip asked.
You couldn’t talk to men like these about women. Men like Clip carried pictures of their girlfriends in lingerie, pictures to be savored quietly at night. But in fact they displayed them to everyone. I saw it all the time.
“Amy Williams,” I said.
Mark and Candid were watching the house intently. The sun was almost down, and the sky above it was bursting into color.
“She lives in Boston now,” I said.
“You from Boston?” Clip asked.
“No,” I said. “Kansas.”
“Well,” Clip said, “you ain’t in Kansas no more.” They all laughed. It was the funniest joke they had ever heard.
“She from Kans-ass, too?” Clip asked.
“No.” But then I was talking about Lura, and I immediately wished I weren’t. “I don’t know where she’s from originally. They moved around a lot. She’s in college. Acting, or something like that.”
“Nice,” Mark said, turning back to look at me. It was as if this elevated me in his eyes, as if it really mattered where we were from and whether we’d ever been in love.
“She’s pregnant now,” I added. Which was true, and again I wished that it weren’t. I had never even told Cooper or Santiago this. “But it’s not mine.” I wouldn’t have added that if it really mattered.
They all nodded. Stories like that were common in the Army. A
