Azra’eil & Fudgie
A Short Story
by
Andrew Barger
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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“So I figured, hey if so many of you guys want to come here on vacation, I want the place to look nice. Brighten it up a bit.”
---Azra’eil
Azra’eil & Fudgie
The Skullcrusher crawled down the Afghan road; if the unmarked strip of blowing desert sand and pebbles beneath the marines was a “road.” They were on their morning sweep for buried IEDs. Today they would be clearing a new path out from Khan Neshin in the Rig district of Helmand province. A clear path would enable Special Ops to slice its way into a suspected stronghold of Taliban insurgents.
“Whoa!” said Corporal Vance from the passenger’s seat of the Skullcrusher. His binoculars were pressed to the three-inch thick, shrapnel-proof glass. “That bombed-out tank is . . . painted. So are the Jeeps.”
“Aren’t all vehicles painted?” questioned the driver, Sergeant Moore.
“I mean not just painted. Designs on them . . . patterns. No wait . . . Freakin’ flowers . . . Hold on . . . That destroyed tank has a plastic daisy sticking out of the barrel.”
The marines were on a new sweeping route. At one o’clock on the horizon they saw a wasteland of mechanized corpses rotting in the desert. The closest was a destroyed Jeep compliments of an RPG. All four tires were blown out and a swatch of charred sand fanned out from what was left of its undercarriage. Colorful white flowers dotted its sides.
“Craziest graffiti I’ver saw. Flowers? Should we have a look?”
“This road has to be swept first,” warned Sgt. Moore. “You know it takes forever. Let’s keep moving.”
The MPAP (Mine Protected, Ambush Protected) vehicle, they affectionately called Skullcrusher, was not allowed to travel more than the speed of a brisk walk. Five miles an hour was the maximum for spotting buried explosives. The marines in the Skullcrusher were forced to investigate everything that could remotely be an IED.
Sergeant Moore checked his rearview and immediately picked up the communicator mouthpiece stuck to the dashboard. He proceeded to bark orders to the much smaller Humvee following behind. “You’re too close. Stay at least twenty yards back, Pence.”
“Aye-aye, Sarg.”
“I know how jumpy you get on these runs.”
“Jumpy?”
“Back, I said.”
Corporal Pence switched off the radio communications and eased the gas pedal. “Sarg isn’t exactly Mr. Ice. You see him sweatin’ yesterday when we dug out that last IED?”
“We all got the yips,” said Private Fudgerié next to him. “Most guys out here are happy to spend a few hours scanning mountain ranges for Talis. We dig up bombs that’ll rip us into a thousand pieces.”
“They never found the hand of that Jarhead who got stupid last month and tried to disarm one by himself,” said Cpl. Pence.
“Just his ring finger I heard.”
“Yeah, ‘cause it got propelled into the leg of Johnson. Lodged in his thigh. Stuck there like it was plugging a dam of blubber. Had to be pulled out with pliers. The wedding ring stopped the finger from going clean through,” informed Cpl. Pence.
Pvt. Fudgerié got wide-eyed.
“A good day out here is not getting a body part blown off. Nobody stays calm under these conditions. Nobody. Not even Sarg no matter how much he lets on. And especially not you, Fudgie.”
Pvt. Fudgerié made a cupping motion with his hands. “Kiddin’ me? I’m ready to hold my first skull today. Looking forward to it,” he lied.
What about the gravy boat, Fudgie? came a familiar voice in his head. As always, he tried to ignore it.
“You’re going to be standing there holding a metal skull while the detonator is worked on,” Cpl. Pence reminded with a tinge of smirk. “Touching it, feeling it against your skin. It’s like holding a baby made of steel that you can’t drop.”
Or a metal gravy boat. You hated holding Mom’s gravy boat, too, in front of the entire family. Didn’t you, Fudgie?
“And you’ll be thinking the whole time, What if I drop it or one of the wires gets crossed by the Jarhead working on it and boom?”
With that Pvt. Fudgerié squirmed in his seat.
“You will never be the same after your first real one. Sort of like having your first girl, only that’s way into the future for you. Right, Fudgie?”
There came no response.
Cpl. Pence was not finished much to the private’s dismay. “The sand pelts you in all the wrong places as you stand there holding it. That’s when you realize you’ll never get all of the grit out no matter how many times you shower. The ears are the worst. All those curves and crevices. Like I said, you’re just standing there . . . just, just holding that cold IED skull the entire time while your ears itch like crazy—”
“And . . . and the entire family is laughing at you while Mom glares something awful.”
“What family, Fudgie?”
The family that handed down the gravy boat, Fudgie. That circa 1812 English china gravy boat with the fluted pouring spout! The one Mom said had been in the family since great-great-great-grandfather Fudgerié emigrated from Paris. The circa 1812 English china gravy boat Mom told you to be extremely careful with. That’s the one.
Pvt. Fudgerié flashed back to that unforgettable Thanksgiving Day, a decade ago, when his domineering mother, widow and elementary school cook—Gretchen Fudgerié, decided that in their family a new tradition would be started. In her mind Carl would not become a man when shooting his first gun or making his first tackle on the football field. No, in the Fudgerié household, where any and all events revolved around food of some type, Carl would become a man in ceremonial fashion by presenting the steaming gravy boat with Mom’s award winning gravy—per the Sandusky, Ohio County Fair judges who rated it 9.5 on both taste (“rustic with notes of Portobello mushroom and reminiscent of Parisian bouillabaisse”) and texture (“chiffonlike”)—to the entire family: the aunts, uncles, eight cousins. And he would be dressed in his new seersucker suit, bowtie and red suspenders that Mom had bought him just for the splendid occasion.
So you, the dutiful (and bountiful) son, appeared from the swinging kitchen doors with all of them watching around the dinning room table while Mom Gretchen hummed a tune that strangely sounded like “The Bridal Chorus” by Richar
d Wagner (that she called “Here Comes the Bride”). Cupped in your hands was the steaming, circa 1812, gravy boat colored in pale lemon and white with mint green band around the middle. The pattern, as Mom announced to all, was “peony flowers in bloom” with “a neck that a Canadian goose would be proud of” and “real 14 carat gold trim.”
The family broke into a round of clapping as you neared the table in a slow, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, approach. To this day Fudgie you cannot remember who said, “I am so proud of him,” just before his shoe caught the edge of the area rug on which the dinning room table sat. You only know that the gravy boat slid down your belly and hit your knee where it briefly wobbled in the air before landing upside down on Mom’s ample lap with the spout broken off. There you stood with award winning gravy oozing down your new seersucker suit. Remember? The unctuous liquid burned your stomach, and slowly puddled on the area rug beneath you. Half the table was laughing and the other half gasping in horror. Then Mom, cursing in horrid obscenities that made it clear her twelve year old boy would never amount to anything in life and had completely missed his chance to ever become a real man, dumped what gravy was left in the boat right on your head.
“Fudgie?” snapped Cpl. Pence. “I asked you a question. What family?”
“Oh nothing.”
In the Skullcrusher, with the trailing Humvee now backed off, Sgt. Moore and Cpl. Vance continued to scan the changing sandscape. The road constantly quavered and writhed in front of them. The beige sea was never calm.
Cpl. Vance pressed his finger against the window and blurted, “There! I see something. A glint.”
“Where?”
“Snap. There it is again. Definitely metal. See it?”
Cpl. Vance popped open one of the six hatches that were carved into the roof and stuck his head out. Through his binoculars he got a closer look. He immediately sunk back down into the passenger seat and verified that the object was at two o’clock.
“Affirmative,” responded Sgt. Moore. He eased the Skullcrusher over toward the shiny object while Cpl. Vance communicated with the Humvee in back. When the military vehicle got within twenty feet, it came to a rolling halt.
As Pvt. Fudgerié and Cpl. Pence approached, the Skullcrusher was prehistoric with its 30 foot arm extending from the front bumper, opposite end having a scoop with teeth, side exhaust pipes for horns, angular hide of steel formed to deflect shrapnel. Surrounding its v-shaped, explosion proof hull were eight beefy tires including one on the side and back. They watched Cpl. Vance eject from the back door, which was the only door out of the Skullcrusher. They stopped the Humvee and followed suit.
Cpl. Vance signaled inside the Skullcrusher and Sgt. Moore began flipping switches to make the arm operational. He then reached down and gripped a joystick mounted in the center console.
The three marines standing outside (and well clear of any potential blast zone) watched the double-jointed arm lift from the roof and extend to a near vertical position. It rotated and bent at the first elbow and then the second until the scoop reached the vicinity of the shiny object.
Cpl. Vance scanned the vicinity for insurgents, gave a thumbs-up to the Skullcrusher, and the scoop lowered. As was standard operating