The Ageless

weak metal and stop somewhere in the vehicle.

  The American sees the soldiers duck behind humvees, one with an AR-15, firing and calling hoarsely into his microphone, the double captains bars on his chest in a flash-frame of orange and white gun-light and shadows and behind there are others, firing M-16s and the weapons sound exactly the same, the American thinks, reading once that they used nearly the same caliber bullet.

  The Afghan is yelling.

  “What?”

  “Guns! Where…guns!”

  The American shakes his head. He turns as a soldier screams.

  The Afghan says, “Be back.” He runs, in the firing of guns and the screams and the horrible darkness and the cold, biting wind that has started, to where the soldier has fallen. He takes the gun and is behind the humvee. His white salwar kameez is glowing in the night and his olive flak jacket, over his tunic and the salwar, makes his top half invisible against the humvee background. He takes the M-16 and aims and fires and aims and fires and works the bolt. He is on a knee and fires again.

  Bullets strike near the American and he falls to his chest and wishes he had a gun to fire like the Afghan. His shirt sticks to him and he feels the sweat in the coldness of the night, light and trickling in the small of his back. On his forehead it is cold and makes him shiver. The guns rattle and rip the air and the bullets hit the ground. Dirt kicks up. He sees the fountains of dirt, white in the nighttime.

  Another soldier screams and the American gets to his knees and puts out a hand at the passing bullets. He counts and waits and counts, starts up on a knee, then ducks back down. Then he wonders and waits. He sees other soldiers ducking and firing and screaming commands angrily.

  The Afghan pulls behind the humvee, slides over to an injured soldier and takes his gun. He calls out and throws it, one-handed, to the American. It clatters like a dry bone onto the earth. The American picks it up and works the bolt. Okay, he says. You know how to fire this. You did this once before. Three years ago, near the Green Zone. You remember this, right? Steady yourself, aim, pull the trigger, don’t overcompensate. Light pulls on the trigger. Breath normally, don’t hold it.

  He steadies himself against the humvee and aims and fires and misses. Goddammit! Don’t hold your breath!

  Okay.

  He aims again and sees in the picture a man dressed like the Afghan and fires and the man falls and drops his rifle and the American sees other soldiers farther ahead. They must have begun the battle and been pushed back. He wonders if anybody had known it would be so terrible. One of the soldiers is on his back, holding his leg. Another steadies against him and fires at the insurgents. The American sees this through the sight, in the picture, and he wonders if anybody had ever known in this whole fucking world how horrible this would be. If anyone knew you had to hold your breath when you pulled and in the pulling you had to be gentle or the muzzle kicked up and you hit nothing but the stars.

  There’s more firing and working the bolt and firing again and the bullets stream by. From behind, a soldier drops behind him and yells in his hear. “Sir! We have to move out of here! It’s a bad fucking position. We need to move!”

  The American turns and nods and he sees the Afghan look over at them, then turn and continue to fire. The soldier points to the humvee near the Afghan. “We need to get in that car, this one’s shot. Blew the engine block out. You ready?”

  “Yeah, yes, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  The soldier peaks out from the corner and hesitates then runs like hell across and joins the Afghan. He turns and waves the American over.

  The American measures the pace of the gunfire and looks at the open dirt in front of him. It has stopped kicking now. There were only thirty feet to the Afghan and the cover behind the other humvee. He crouches to his feet and cradles the gun so its muzzle points off to the side. The other humvee takes gunfire. He hears the ting-ting-plunk as bullets impact. But if he can get behind, it’s okay. He knows it’s okay behind. The Afghan yells something. In his breath, the American can taste his heartbeats. They are bitter and acidic. He inhales deeply, holds it, and runs.

  His thighs strain and he feels he has never run this hard ever in his life and the calves burn and he feels out of his wind. Halfway there, he turns and sees the flashfire of bullets and rifle muzzles. The moon is lit now and cuts the outlines of the low buildings and huts in sharp relief against the vacuous, plain night. The dirt kicks to his right. He feels the pain. It starts in his right leg, then branches out in a ripping, burning, copper-tasting, sick and sweet pain to his shoulder and side. He falls.

  Someone runs out and yells and grabs him and pulls hard and he hurts more and screams and there are the bullets, the sound of them kicking dirt around him. It sounds soft and wispy, like slapping birch branches against grass or a sheet of paper against a wood table. To his left is the humvee and his back is on the ground. His face is near the tire and he can smell the warm rubber.

  “Sir, we need to get you fixed up,” the soldier cries out. Behind the Afghan continues to fire. They all continue to fire.

  The soldier tears at his clothes, the khaki travel pants and the flak jacket. The American looks up and says, “I’m fine.” He feels intense pain in his legs but he grits his teeth and says again, “I’m fine. The flak jacket.”

  The soldier stays focused on his legs and the American sees that there’s a lot of blood and he relaxes back against the dirt floor and crushes his eyes closed and thinks how his legs weren’t protected by the flak jacket. Goddammit. My legs. You never thought to protect your legs, did you? Who shoots at the legs anyway? Someone with horrible fucking aim, that’s who. “I’m in a bad way,” he mutters quietly. The burning pain numbs his mind and he sees in his mind his legs torn to shreds.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. We’ve got a medevac coming. You just need to hold on.”

  The American feels happy that the soldier is there because the pain quickly lessens and it is better. On his back, he can smell only the warm rubber of the tire and the dirt, kicked up into his nose and around his face. His eyes water and he rubs them with his left arm. He can see the stars floating above him but they seem very close to his eyes and the moon is clear and crisp and he lifts his head. The Afghan has finished firing and is kneeling on one knee, slightly facing the American. The Afghan looks down at the ground, as if to avert his eyes. The American catches his eye and they look at one another for a moment.

  The goddamn legs, the American thinks. The mother-fucking, son-of-a-whore legs. One or two shots there and you go down and then you’re done. Well, the soldier said the medevac is coming so maybe not. The gunfire continues and the American wonders how many soldiers have gone down in this fight. How many more have died just now? Tonight? What does that put us up to? What’s the score? Are we ahead? Or are they? That was how they reported it at home. By numbers, like a score, like a damn arcade game. My God, and some think that this is worth dying for. Dying for a game of backgammon is what they’re doing. They’re dying to win a board game, like some little kid that wants to beat his sister in Monopoly. And if he wins, he’s happy for a little bit but then he’s antsy and grows bored of it and wants to win at something else. But if he loses, he’s pissed the hell off and sulks and sits in the corner and makes faces and still wants to win at something else. The American thinks he’s found something in the winning, in the necessity of it, the sheer terror of not having it. That’s what it is. It’s all winning. And when it doesn’t happen, God help all of us.

  The firing slowly subsides and all of a sudden there is only the serenity of this night. Occasionally he hears the yell of a man or the call of someone for a rank and a name. Several times he hears many voices yell out, “Captain Masterson! Captain Masterson!” The temperature seems to have plummeted. He is shivering and it very quiet now that the fighting has stopped. The soldier has finished working on him and now just kneels at his feet, staring off into the dark, his eyes unmoving. The Afghan moves next to the American
now, looks at his legs, and pulls his flak jacket tighter. His face is set and rigid. “Cold? Cold?” he asks.

  The American looks at him and nods. “Yes, it’s cold.”

  He thinks that there is something significant going on here but he’s not sure and only feels cold. He thinks maybe he should say something important. Maybe the Lord’s Prayer? He isn’t Catholic and doesn’t know anything beyond our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. But it always seems an important thing, prayer. It always possesses a gravity. He feels nauseous and knows he might vomit. When he shifts his weight the pain returns so he remains still. The Afghan’s eyes are dark and steady on his face.

  The American curses. And you thought dying for your honor was worth it. He realizes now that only a woman is worth dying for. Yes, it’s true, folks, I’m sorry to say. Maybe the truest sentence that can ever be written. To die for a woman is worth it. Nothing else. There’s too much caught up in everything else. Dying for your country, for your religion, for your principles, your pride and your honor. No, he thinks. It’s all a bunch of horseshit. Too much stuff is caught in the middle of them. Too much goddamn politics and history and all of it works against you. With a woman, it’s just you and her.