A Heart of Broken Bullets

Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash

Broken or whole, any kid who dropped their sig on a military contract knows it starts with seared, blistered memory of Sergeant Generic Drill screaming get off the fucking bus right now maggots.

End of the line.

Duncan gets off, puke green, his old world dead, and whatever left of its rotted civilian corpse so far away not even stench. Gone. Forever. His innocence never to return.

Shoved like cattle, Duncan and all other new meat, into medical vaccination chutes. A line of doctors on each side hammer injection needles into their left / right / left / right / left / right shoulders with every damn vaccine ever invented.

Rammed into barber shops where anything that once resembled a hair style down to the floor, red and blond and black mixed into an indistinguishable mess of discarded individuality.

They march, they run. Day after day after hour after hour. Cactus  breath, chests heaving boulders. Some collapse. They’re kicked and cursed for maggots.

They climb. Ropes, bars. Push themselves up from the asphalt. Over and over, fifty or a hundred reps each infraction, each whim of Sergeant Generic Drill. They crawl and crawl and crawl on muddy aching elbows, head down, down, down below the bullets.

Rifles, Army issue M-16. Blows a handsome hole in a paper target. Human beings too, but that comes later. Meanwhile, learn to love your weapon, son. Your only child. You’re nothing without it. Worship it. Your old gods are can’t save you no more.

Weeks later in the barracks before lights out. This is shit. Standard issue grumble, expected. But all stronger, faster. Fucking draft, should have run away, says Weston, from one of the Dakotas. In a year, his blown up leg to be amputated so he can crutch himself home, a discarded cog.

Judge made me, says Gonzalez, short guy and wiry. That or jail. Not much of a choice. One day he’ll wish it was jail.

I enlisted, says Duncan. Like proud of his fool heart.

You shitting me, says Palmer, Louisiana boy with hard shucks. Why’d you do that?

Like to kill me some, says Duncan, and can’t quite finish the thought because he doesn’t know some what exactly. But something, somebody, a purge. The others nod, legit reason. Still they say him crazy. Better to stay home in the world, fight bus schedules and boredom.

But Duncan has no friends, no prospects, no future. A zero. An outcast and angry. And what he doesn’t say is he wants his father to say good job for once. He wants his mother to cry.

* * *

Ten months later, other side of the earth, Sergeant Miller an asshole. Miller blusters in by way of some military mystery, takes over. But he be shit. No experience. No clue. Empty prancer. The kind of guy gets people dead.

Now Duncan had his fill. Everyone their fill. Three guys down. Down for real and no time for Sergeants. Was a movie once, a comedy of errors. No time for errors, no time for lies.

If I had the guts, I’d kill him, says Duncan.

No guts, cowards all when it comes to life, real life. But that’s hollowness talking, a troubled boy, splintered mind, damaged heart, late at night when lights stop flashing, and fires in the distance burn down.

Can’t talk about this shit, says some grunt, name forgotten. Scared.

No fucking scared, says big black Lukas, by way of Tennessee maybe. But he bravado full, king of fucks. No focus, no serious think, no time like the present to put him on point, step on a damn landmine.

No. Not that. Brothers, brothers all.

But not Sergeant Miller.

What do we do? Voice in the darkness, some green garb, signal fading.

They don’t check bullets in bodies. No time, no reason, and they don’t want to know.

I want to know, says Duncan.

Find your guts then, says Peterson. And that’s the tip point, straw of camel back. Find guts or die, find guts or die inside hard where it counts. Find an excuse to kill, get down to mud, get down to business, chamber that round.

Duncan chambers that round, chambers another. Over and over. In the bush, scorched rasped breath, broken belief, brothers all.

Not Sergeant Miller. Sergeant Miller meat.

* * *

Shit, says some backwad Lieutenant. Another company, another rule set, can’t make command, can’t comprehend, only shrug an enlisted man death off or die inside hard where it counts, where a heart beats bad. Better to cold kill in the jungle, favored son my ass, lies all of it, innocent trust, gutless, green, foolish, prideful, angry, raw father shit, fucking raw father shit.

You wanted to kill, says a guy, Duncan not remember names, gone, please, no more names. Memory betrayed, names fall down, fly home, fractured, used up, or etched to a forever broken black wall.

Yes, Duncan wanted to kill, an impossible itch. Now thousands dead, a wall of shame, pride, vanity, conceit. Arrogance.

Spell it boy, spill it. Nobody warned you. Nobody cared.

I wanted to kill, says Duncan. Base back, somewhere, lost about 20 km from nowhere, ten million miles from no more home. It’s over, you fucked up, too many mistakes, weak, tried to please a hard father man, a hard man hard inside like hard men are, dried, calcified, drained of love, critical, with serious judgments, grave to the grave, essential, decisive, flawed.

We all flawed, says Freeman, another Dakota boy, Black Hills, who in what seems like a hundred years will call Duncan and say: Help me, I’m lost. I’m flawed and forgotten.

Future Duncan will answer the call. He’ll say: I’m flawed too, brother, a damaged piece of machine. Let’s get a beer.

Some beers and that’s the end of it. Never again, too hard. Freeman will go back and cry himself drunk to sleep. Duncan will wish for the rifle he couldn’t smuggle home.

But back base somewhere, lost about 20 km from nowhere, ten million miles from no more home, and what seems like a hundred years ago, Duncan spits in the dirt, a signal that no more word can he say. He’s done and over, baked brown, burned from desire to kill he wanted so bad, a wild swine, water from a bitter well. All for nothing, all for a need to vent his rage, satisfy an impossible man.

* * *

Duncan, army hospital, bright light. A doctor face. A nurse. Needles and drugs. Welcome back, says doctor face,  mouth a crack in the earthcrust, eyes holed up in a cave.

Back where? says Duncan, and doctor face says home, in the world.

But that’s a lie. Duncan has no home, no friends, no prospects, no future. A zero. An outcast. Less angry now, a little, not much, the kettle cooled, but ready to boil again, ready to spill out the stove at a slight touch of flame.

I killed him, says Duncan. I killed them all. That’s my respect and salvation.

Doctor face looks at nurse face, back at Duncan. You washed out, he says. Eyes of Duncan widen, then wither and die. What do you mean?

We shipped you out, then shipped you back. Section 8 son. You flipped out. Doctor speak, doctor face.

I wanted to kill, says Duncan. And I did. Sergeant Miller, and the rest of those devils who ruined my life.

Yes, many dead, many, says doctor face, but not at your hand, and Sergeant Miller flew back to Ohio eighteen months ago, opened a pet store. You washed out.

That’s a lie, says Duncan.

But no lie. No lie at all. Not like the others. The lie of father love that pushed Duncan to enlist, lie of acceptance, lie of redemption, of deliverance. False all, failed, a busted mind making tricks of itself, a mockery of desire, scorn, a charade of accomplishments. How absurd is the human heart to desire death, how foolish, but also how customary, how encouraged by a family of habitual ridicule.

Now what? asks Duncan.

Take your papers and go, says doctor face. It’s over, we lost.

Military paper made for trash but doctor face speaks true. All lost. Duncan lost his innocence, the chance to please his impossible father, and part of his mind. Doctor lost his oath to no harm. And the town where Duncan grew, the state, the nation, and the whole world lost an opportunity to see a nascent war and refuse to feed it with hard guns and the soft damaged hearts of broken boys.

— — —

Thank you for reading. I’ve held on to this one for quite a while, decided to let it go. Victor David