Lt. Macklin was screaming out from death. Sergeant Wilcox was screaming into a radio, “Lt. Macklin is critical, sir .. . . I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, sir! . . . Yes sir! . . . I understand, sir!”
Anderson was down in the dirt. Gunfire was erupting all around him. It had been this way all afternoon.
The Sergeant slammed the receiver down and screamed at Martinez to take some men and flank the “son-of-a-bitch.”
Anderson heard the bullets ricocheting off the wall, as concrete chips and sand spilled over him. He huddled against the wall closer and watched the medic apply gauze, then hands, then all his body weight to the gaping hole in Lt. Macklin’s chest.
“Anderson!” Suppress that bastard,” the Sergeant screamed, pointing toward a boulder across the street from the unit.
“Yes sir. Suppress the bastard, sir” is what Anderson said out loud.
Anderson rolled from behind the small concrete wall where he and the others were in cover, and fired his M-16 toward the boulder where the shooting was coming from. As he reloaded, he heard the others firing, and then, the Sergeant screaming, “Go.” As Anderson fired his weapon into the boulder again, marine boots scurried past, kicking shell casings and small clouds of dust into his face. He went through two magazines, and was reloading, when the Sergeant patted him on his helmet.
“Nice job, son. Now wait,” the Sergeant said.
“Thank you sir. That was gravity, sir,” is what Anderson said out loud.
The Sergeant rolled his eyes.
Moments later, gunfire erupted from his right, where Martinez and two others had flanked. There was return fire from behind the boulder. As a young, dark-skinned man ran from behind, he clasped his hand over a red explosion at his neck. Anderson pulled his rifle to the ready, but the Sergeant patted Anderson’s helmet, again.
“Let the bastard bleed out,” the Sergeant screamed.
Anderson watched as the young man dropped his rifle, looked wildly around him, mouth gaping in attempted scream, and then finally, fell to his face. A small cloud of dust rose around him. He moved once more, to roll over, then nothing. Anderson watched and covered Martinez and the others slowly approached the man.
“Clear,” Martinez shouted.
There was silence. No more screaming.
“God damn it,” said the Sergeant looking at Lt. Macklin’s body.
#
Anderson kneeled in the dry desert dust, beside the boulder, digging. He looked at the young man’s stiff body. The face contorted in anguish, but silent, bloody. He never saw Lt. Macklin’s face after death. Nor could he remember it alive, now.
“Anderson!”
Anderson stopped, dropped his shovel, and saluted the Sergeant.
“Anderson, you dumb son-of-a-bitch. I said cover his ass with some dirt so the Dune Bunnies won’t see him –not make him a proper grave, you dumb ass!”
Anderson, batted a fly from his cheek, pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, and blinked into the glaring sun. He could just make out the Sergeant and Martinez standing about ten yards away.
“Damn Sarge, we have one dumb-ass cherry here,” said Martinez.
They all stood there for a moment, Anderson looking back and forth to the Sergeant and Martinez, waiting.
“Well, Anderson,” the Sergeant screamed. “Just throw the asshole in the hole, already.”
“Yes sir! Sergeant, sir! Throw the asshole in the hole, sir!”
Anderson picked up his shovel.
“Anderson, do you even understand gravity?”
“Yes sir. I studied Gravity in Astronomy class, sir!”
“Well, how nice Anderson. You studied Gravity in school.”
The sergeant leaned forward and pointed to the hole.
“Jesus Christ, son! You wouldn’t know what gravity meant if it bit you on the ass,” the Sergeant screamed.
Anderson turned to the body and picked the dead man up from the feet and struggled to drag the stiff body into the hole. There was a thump and then dust arose up from within.
“Now, that’s gravity, son” The Sergeant screamed, and then he and Martinez walked away.
Anderson turned toward the hole and shoveled heavy sand and rocks in, and thought, there was a different kind of gravity. Like when Anna’s body was over his, beside the cool Catawba River. When she came down gentle, the gravity of her pulling him in, crushing, a gentle-like force with just enough energy and mass for his planet to know her planet.
The sun was fast approaching dusk, and he sat next to the grave, taking a break from the heat. Drinking slowly from his water bottle, he wiped sweat and flies away from his face. He sat like this as the sun lowered slowly behind the mountains, and in the twilight, he could no longer tell if it was sweat or tears that ran down his face. He thought about last June, after high school graduation, when he didn’t come on the family’s annual picking day with his momma and sister to pick ripe strawberries. He didn’t go because he was with Anna Dupree. In the hot and humid North Carolina heat, he didn’t think carrying baskets of strawberries down long and dusty rows was all that important when compared to making love to Anna in his air-conditioned room at home.
But, now he understood the importance, he thought. Under Anna’s weight, another weight took form. So instead of going to college, Anderson joined the Marines. No, Anderson thought, he understood gravity, and the only difference between the Sergeant’s gravity and his had to do with planets, or love.
“I just want to be home with Anna,” is what Anderson cried out.
He wiped away the tears and snot from his nose, and looked around to see if anyone noticed his tears and laziness, but the other men were off scouting. He finished raking the last bit of sand from the pile into the hole and folded his shovel. He looked out into vast landscape of Afghanistan and saw its desolate ocean of sand and rock. It seemed bewildering to him that in such a desolated place, he could bring more desolation. Here, it seemed there was no mark in which to measure the horizon that stretched before him. At least, at home he could mark things, such as time; or even distance, like when tracing the two moles between Anna’s breasts.
Anderson sat cross-legged, with rifle across his lap, and leaned against the crumbling wall he had shot from earlier. He tore open an MRE of rice and beans and found his spoon from the pack. He watched the men, who had returned from scouting, across the road from him, eating and talking solemnly. Further down, the sergeant talked to an old villager. They were looking at a map, pointing at it, and then every few seconds the Sergeant would point around at the surrounding mountains. Anderson watched the Sergeant, folding the map, unfolding the map; his gait, as he walked back to the men. Martinez ran up to the Sergeant and they talked a few moments, and then the sergeant looked around searching, spotted Anderson.
“Anderson! Get your ass over here!” the Sergeant screamed.
Anderson jumped to his feet, and grabbed his M-16. Holding his MRE in one hand and the M-16 in the other, he ran awkwardly to the Sergeant and the other men.
“Listen up. All of you,” said the Sergeant. “I’ve been talking to the Camel Jockey over there and he says Taliban come every night to this dung hole of a village to rest up. And now, Martinez has the pleasure of informing us he saw the dust of possible insurgents moving toward the village twenty clicks south.”
“How about an air support sir,” asked one of the men.
“Listen dipshits, we don’t have air support, or an air anything for that matter.”
Anderson was eating his MRE slowly, listening.
“Anderson! Pull your ass out of your goddamn MRE and pay attention, boy.”
Anderson stood wildly blinked, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. He licked his spoon and dropped the empty MRE on the ground and then kneeled before the Sergeant.
The Sergeant paused and looked at each man. “Now, after twilight, we need to move out and try to make that rock outlay up there, below that ridge line. We don’t leave anyone behind, so the LT is coming. Understood?”
All the men raised their voice in unison with, “Booyah,” and then fell into grabbing their gear quickly. The sound of rustling packs, ammo magazines, and murmurs filled the air, as the Sergeant walked away. Anderson studied the Sergeant who stood with his back to him, looking between a compass and the rock outlay on the ridge.
“Lewis! . . . Lewis,” the Sergeant screamed.
Martinez approached the Sergeant, and whispered into his ear. The Sergeant’s shoulders sighed and then he turned and looked over the men; his eyes fell on Anderson.
“Anderson, you’ve got point.”
“Yes sir, I’ve got point, sir” is what Anderson said out loud.
“If that poor, dumb son-of-a-bitch makes it through the night, he’ll be lucky,” is what the Sergeant said to Martinez, while sadly shaking his head.
As Anderson pulled his gear together, he thought about Anna and how their newfound weight had made them a galaxy. He wondered if he could handle such a marvelous galaxy after all of this desolation.
“Lock and load,” the Sergeant screamed.
And as the men chambered their rounds, each one looked at the other and weaklu smiled.
Anderson took point, led them slowly toward the north.
#
Later that night, Martinez was screaming out for blood, and the Sergeant was screaming out orders. As he kneeled behind a rock, firing someone else’s M-16, Anderson just screamed and screamed. He screamed out loud, over the bullets, and the rockets, and the screaming, until it was just he, alone in the flashing dark, screaming.
All over his body, strawberries bloomed.
And when Anderson began to feel a different gravity take hold, he understood the importance of weight for the Sergeant.
