Grunt Life Read online

  First published 2014 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-670-1

  ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-671-8

  Copyright © 2014 Weston Ochse

  Cover art by Clint Langley

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  “This isn’t a war,” said the artilleryman. “It never was a war, any more than there’s war between man and ants.”

  H.G. Wells,

  The War of the Worlds

  People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

  George Orwell

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS MY love of movies that made me choose the Vincent Thomas Bridge to kill myself. The bridge had gained a certain notoriety over the years. That it had been a shooting location for the films Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lethal Weapon 2, To Live and Die in LA, Heat and The Island was a bonus. But the chief reason I’d chosen to jump from it was because of my adoration of film director Tony Scott, and the fact that he’d jumped from this very same bridge back in 2012. The director of Top Gun, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance and the incomparable Man on Fire had parked his car beside where I now stood, climbed over the rail, and leaped. Some people said that Tony hadn’t meant to kill himself, that a bad combination of drugs had affected his thinking, but I knew better. The truth was that sometimes life was just shit and there was nothing else to be done about it.

  I fought against the fear of dying and concentrated on the lights of the harbor. A cruise ship was pulling in. Beyond it, giant cranes glowed with warning lights. To my right, the San Pedro hill was dotted with a thousand lights, each one a home, someone watching television, eating dinner, fucking, or simply staring off into space. To my left was the great plain of Long Beach, where another million souls did the same, unaware that a man who’d been awarded two silver and three bronze stars was about to take a swan dive, just to be rid of all the irrevocable memories of what he’d done, what he’d seen, and what he hadn’t done as a soldier in far-flung countries.

  Life was so far behind me, I don’t know when I’d lost it. My current mission was death, and I’d come prepared. I wore black fatigues, boots and gloves. A black skull cap covered my head and I’d painted my face with black camouflage. I wasn’t there to draw attention. I wasn’t there to make a statement. I was there for one final selfish moment, to do something for myself, if only I had the courage of Tony Scott.

  I remember laughing at the idea of suicide back before my life happened. I remember talking to my soldiers and scolding them, even ridiculing them, to dissuade them from committing such a final act. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I knew a person should never give up. I absolutely understood that by killing myself I was dishonoring all of those who had laid their own lives on the line to preserve mine. I’d counseled these very same things on numerous occasions.

  So then why couldn’t I follow my own counsel?

  I’d stepped over the rail and had backed into the shadow of a beam ten minutes ago. Cars sped past behind me, windows open to catch the sea air, leaving me with a random montage of music by which to die. Grasping the beam, I leaned forward and stared down at the stygian black water. I let my mind wander back to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Mali, to Kosovo—a badly edited film filled with variations on deathly themes. The deaths of children lying like discarded dolls in the middle of an Iraqi street; at the bottom of a Serbian burial pit; atop a mountain near Tora Bora. The deaths of women, raped and left in a position so much like prayer. The deaths of men, body parts raining like confetti at an end of the world party. Death. Death. More fucking death.

  Somewhere along the line I’d ceased to be a hero and had become a death merchant. The very term hero had become a laughable idea. “Who do you think you are, a hero?” my platoon sergeant had once asked. I’d wanted to respond that I did, that I was, but I knew that he’d already turned that corner where he no longer cared about the mission, but just wanted to survive. Heroism was so far beyond him he might as well have been back on his couch, getting fat and watching other people play sports. It was then that I’d realized that there would come a time when I’d be just like him. If I ever got to the point where I didn’t know the difference between a hero or a zero and lost my grip on what’s right and wrong, I promised myself that I’d end it.

  So here I was.

  Opened in 1963, the Vincent Thomas Bridge had a clearance of one hundred eighty-five feet, which was like jumping from an eighteen story building. It used to be lit by only a few random bulbs, but in 2005 that had been changed to a hundred and sixty solar powered LED lights. It looked like I was about to leap from the side of an alien spacecraft.

  If only.

  I tensed my body and prepared myself. I’d decided not to swan dive. That worked in the movies, but it was the sort of stupid gesture that would make me tumble and flail in my final moments. The last thing I wanted at the end was to be out of control. My design was to jump straight out and allow gravity to bring me to grace.

  “This could be a beginning instead of an end, you know?”

  The voice startled me so much that I almost slipped and fell right then. I saw a figure climbing over the rail. Dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie, he had a drawn, pallid complexion. Like that actor from Reservoir Dogs; what was his name?

  “Get out of here,” I snarled.

  “It’s a free country,” he said.

  Was he being serious? “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Trying to see if we can convince you to stick around for a while.” The man seemed at ease and spoke with the authority of an officer. Closer now, I saw the pockmarks on his thin face. That was it: I was thinking of Steve Buscemi.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “No, but we know you. Benjamin Carter Mason, assigned to 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Logar Province, Eastern Afghanistan and on leave in Los Angeles, until your untimely death in a house fire.”

  Wait a minute. Was I already dead? Was this the synaptic backwards flip of a brain that had already become lifeless?

  “I assure you that you’re not crazy.” Mr. Pink grinned and held up a finger. “At least not to the degree to which you think.”

  “I didn’t die in a fire,” I said with as much authority I could muster under the circumstances.

  “Au contraire,” Mr. Pink said, pointing towards San Pedro. A point of light expanded, becoming a raging orange blob. “Seems there was a gas leak. They’ll find a body inside matching your general height and weight. During the autopsy when they check your DNA and fingerprints, they’ll find that they match the deceased. They were lucky the fire didn’t spread to the rest of the apartment complex. Your next door neighbor, Ms. O’Brien, is passed out in her chair, sleeping through a rerun of Survivor.”

  After a few moments of staring at the fire, I managed to stammer, “Why are you doing this?”

  “It seemed to us you were determined to end your life. We hastened to help so that you can start a new one.”

  “Who are you?”

  “No one you’ve ever heard of.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. I’d seen some version of this in several bad made-for-cable movies. Then again, I’d also seen movies ab
out how insane people believe in conspiracy theories or that everyone is out to get them. A line of dialogue from a Woody Allen film came to mind. ‘There’s a word for someone who believes that everyone is conspiring against them—perceptive.’ I also remembered my favorite radio talk show host, The Night Stalker. ‘Conspiracies are what smart people call the truth, and what stupid people call too complicated to be real.’

  Conspiracy or no conspiracy, whether they substituted my body or not, whether they wanted me to work for them or not, didn’t change the fact that there were people, places and events I could never remove from my mind... things I’d done and hadn’t done, which could only be obliterated by an eternity of nothing.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble,” I finally said.

  Then I jumped.

  I was in free fall for three glorious seconds before I hit the net. I bounced once, twice, three times, then got my legs entangled. By the time they lowered me to the ship below, I was calling their mothers things that would shock even a jail house whore.

  SETI was the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life. It was our outreach program to the stars. In 1995 it lost federal government funding. Was that because we couldn’t afford it? Did we decide we didn’t need a welcome wagon for future alien friends? Or did we no longer need it for a specific reason? Had we already made contact? There are those who would laugh at us and call us conspiracy nut jobs. There are those who would lump us with people who speak in tongues, believe in Bigfoot, and worship the Abominable Snowman. Not that anything is wrong with these things, but they are indicative of a willingness to believe in something that is largely not provable. But let me ask you this, my night time listeners, how come a private company took over the program almost immediately, pumping more money into it than the federal government ever did? Why is a private corporation pouring billions of dollars into a program the U.S. government shut down because they believed it was a ridiculous idea? Come on, America. Answer the question, if you dare. What do you believe?

  Conspiracy Theory Talk Radio,

  Night Stalker Monologue #899

  I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely his lips, follow me.

  Giuseppe Garibaldi

  CHAPTER TWO

  THEY DROVE ME to LAX in the back of a white van with blacked-out windows. Mr. Pink, who called himself my ‘recruiter,’ sat beside me in the first row of bench seats. The two rows behind me were empty.

  After the boat, they’d taken me to a room near the San Pedro Detention Facility—a place where those trying to illegally immigrate were usually taken until Customs and Border Patrol could come and get them. When they’d first pulled me from the net, I was as mad as a cat in a tub full of water. I must have hit and kicked five or six of them before they managed to subdue me by tossing a bucket of water on me. The shockingly cold water of the bay stiffened me, and they pulled me roughly but calmly to the deck. I managed to elbow one full in the chin, rocking his head back. For a second, he looked as if he was going to haul back and dust me. By his size, in retrospect, it wouldn’t have taken much. He had arms the size of water pipes and a nose that looked like he’d modeled as the ‘before’ picture for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Another man with his head shaven on the sides, leaving only a short bit of fuzz on top—what we called a high-and-tight—held my right leg and gave him a look that stopped him in his place. Evidently I wasn’t to be touched, which pissed me off all over again. I tried to kick at high-and-tight, but he held on, his smile straight-lining as he gripped tighter, isolating my knee so it wouldn’t bend.

  The boat docked shortly afterward and they carried me into a lighted complex surrounded by razor wire and patrolled by guards. In the receiving area, they placed ankle chains around my legs and cuffs on my hands. Then they attached a chain from the cuffs to the bonds around my ankles, which made me hunch over a little. Finally, they tossed me into a room with only a mattress and a metal chair. The chair was bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. The mattress, on the other hand, could be moved around. If there’d been a window, I might have done so, shifting the filthy striped thing so I could get a better view of the bay. But since they’d chosen to house me in their special Prisoner of Zenda suite, I threw myself down and huddled as best I could in my wet clothes, occasionally shuddering and thinking about how I’d almost made it, how my nightmares had almost been banished forever.

  I’m not sure how long I slept, but when they next came for me, I felt the acrid taste of dust in my mouth and my clothes had almost dried. My shoulders ached and my wrists were chafed from the cuffs. The same two men who’d subdued me came in and lifted me up. They were gentler than they had been before. Which was good—I didn’t feel like putting up much of a fight. I was tired and hungry, and had to pee.

  They removed my bonds, escorted me to the bathroom and closed the door. It was a regular institutional bathroom with several urinals and stalls, much like you find in elementary schools, prisons, and libraries. On the counter next to one of the sinks was a pile of clothes. I relieved myself, then picked through them. They were all my size. I ditched my clothes and slid into these. Soon I was standing in front of a mirror wearing jeans, a fashion-faded Captain America T-shirt, a light jacket, and Converse athletic shoes. I ran my hand through my light brown hair. It was still too short to comb, but the sidewalls from my own high-and-tight were starting to grow back. I’d have to get them shaved.

  My hand stopped in mid-stroke. I was thinking about the future. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. Everything had been on the here-and-now since I’d decided to kill myself, months ago. Yet here I was, thinking about a haircut, as if that was so damned important.

  Someone banged on the door, making me jump.

  “Okay, already,” I called.

  I took a moment longer to wash my face, removing the last vestiges of the camouflage I’d put on the night before.

  I looked at the pile of clothes I’d left on the ground. What to do with them? I’d already transferred my wallet and my St. George medallion. Mr. Pink had something in mind for me and I doubted my old clothes would be necessary, so I left them on the floor of the bathroom.

  I was curious about Mr. Pink’s claim that a Fortune 500 Company wanted a used-up sergeant with too many deployments. When I exited the bathroom, Mr. Pink was waiting for me. He wore a black suit with a white shirt, just as I’d remembered from last night. All that was missing were the sunglasses. I wondered if he knew I called him Mr. Pink. And I wondered if it would piss him off.

  Despite myself, I smiled when I saw him.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Famished.”

  “This way.”

  I followed him down an institutional hall lit with fluorescent lighting. His two men fell in behind.

  “Get a good night’s sleep?” Mr. Pink asked.

  “If you can call it that. Not exactly the best accommodation.”

  Mr. Pink stopped, as did his men. He turned to me. “Sorry about the cuffs. We were worried you might hurt yourself.”

  “Is that what it was?”

  He turned and resumed walking, and we followed. “Early in the process, we had some accidents. So if there was any treatment that appeared to be rough, realize I did that for your own good.”

  For my own good. How many times had I heard that one before?

  “Nevertheless,” he continued, “we have provided some sustenance for you. We weren’t sure what you wanted, and it is going on noon, so I decided to give you some choices for lunch.”

  As he finished, we entered what looked like an executive dining room. There were three tables, two of which were covered with food—plates of steak, fried chicken, French fries, cheeseburgers, and several salads. Several cardboard containers of Chinese food were open and steaming, as were several pizzas. One half of a table contained various pasta
dishes. Another half had fruit, yogurt and healthy alternatives. But what made me laugh were the immense martini glasses filled with shrimp and the three-pound Maine lobster resting as a centerpiece on a plate in the center of the nearest table.

  “I take it you have enough to choose from,” he said.

  My mouth was already watering. I wanted it all, but if I even tried to taste everything, I’d make myself sick. But it was hard not to imagine myself hunched over and filling my face. We used to talk for hours about food in Afghanistan. Beside movies, sex and cars, it was our favorite topic of conversation. And here, in front of me, was everything me and my friends had ever wanted and then some.

  “So what’ll it be?” he asked.

  I stepped forward and grabbed an empty plate. I could treat this as a buffet and have a little of all worlds, but somehow I felt I needed to be more specific. If this was my last meal, what would it be? Looking at the table, I realized it was no choice at all.

  I grabbed a half-pounder cheeseburger and I added mayo, lettuce, onions, bacon, and ketchup. I filled the other half of the plate with fries, adding a nice pool of ketchup to dip into. Then I took my plate to an empty table and sat down.

  “Want something to drink? Beer? Wine?”

  I did want a beer. But this wasn’t about wanting. This was about remembering. So I said, “Milkshake, please,” wondering if I might have just asked for the one thing they didn’t have.

  “Vanilla or chocolate?”

  “Vanilla.”

  I placed a napkin in my lap and watched as one of the men went to a cooler and pulled out a vanilla shake. When he brought it over, I sipped it, a cold velvet dream of winter. Then I ate, and as I did, I thought about Trujillo, who lived in Gilroy, California and who always talked about cheeseburgers, fries and shakes at the local drive-in. I thought about how he’d smiled wistfully when he’d talked about the way he’d bite into the burger and the juices would mix with the ketchup. I thought of the detail he’d go into when he talked about his favorite food. And I thought about the roadside bomb that ate him from the inside out the week after I left Iraq.