matiasb's posterous

Spec 1st Martinez could taste dirt in his mouth. McElroy and Stewart were already dead. McElroy without legs lay nearby but Stewart seemed intact and without any wounds. Other than the fact that he was a good forty feet away from the rest of them, he seemed like a man who had suddenly decided to take a nap in the dirt. The light was wrong for napping. Cold Autumn light, not the warm summer glow where one might lie down for a nap. Martinez would be dead soon but for now he was slowly bleeding out in the middle of the dirt intersection. Alone. The dust settled.

It was unremarkable. Just a dirt road somewhere in Afghanistan. Command had a name for it, well, a number and a letter, but other than that it could be anywhere. Griggs was still sitting, strapped into what was left of the Hummer. His ears were bleeding and his whole head still ringing otherwise he would have laughed at the fact that Bob Marley's Three little birds was still blaring from the left speaker of the Vee. Stewart and his ipod. Mission sound. Fucking solid. Stewart had the mix. The rest of them were just along for the ride.

Back home in Texas Martinez's wife Adele had been awake since 3 am. She laughed with Alma, remembering how many times her husband had told her about the early wake ups of basic. The kids, boys, Cody (ten) and Colter (thirteen), spent the night at her sisters while she had slept at her mother in law Alma's house so that they could get up early and be in line at the Super Wal Mart. Cody wants a wii and Colter needs a new twenty two. Christmas for the boys. Adele also wanted to see what kind of deals she could find on a new forty-two inch television for the family room. As they stood in line now waiting for those Black Friday doors to open they had no idea or thought for the men on the road. They couldn't have guessed that on that road a half a world away Adele's husband was dying and Bob Marley's Three Little Birds was playing. Alma lost a son. Adele bought a wii.

It would be two more days before the knock at the door that told Adele she had "lost" her husband. The knock that told the boys they had lost a father. Two days in which Adele had worried about not hearing from him but consoled herself in the fact that Black Friday had been a great success. The wii was only fifteen percent off, and she had to fight an angry civilian man from Pidcoke for it but the twenty two, a bolt action with camo stock, was last years and so she got it for half price. Colter would be thrilled. Last years model didn't matter. Guns didn't age. She even got the television for thirty percent off because it was one of two left in that model. All of this she explained in an email to her husband that she had dashed off on Saturday as she reflected on her Black Friday success and hoped for quick response from him. Hope and ignorance, the teeter totter a military wife rides without choice.

By Saturday her husband had been dead nearly two days. He had lay there on the road listening to the last of Bob Marley's Three little birds, tasting dirt and some blood, thinking about his boys and Adele and wondering why Stewart was just fucking laying there in the field. Martinez tried to move. Tried to live. Nobody helped. McElroy was goo. Stewart wouldn't move. Griggs was an asshole anyway. Racist. Okie. Adele was a good mother. Adele was good.

Back home it was Black Friday. Americans went shopping. Adele wouldn't have known anything else. Life went on. Why wouldn't it? Just because we were "at war' didn't mean it all had to stop and wait for resolution. No need to kill the spirit to keep the peace. The deals were good and for a moment Adele even believed that one day she would see her husband again. Even believed that he might help Colter learn that gun. Three little birds. One dirt road. Black Friday.

Martinez died there. McElroy was dead. Stewart was dead. Griggs would live to see another tour. Bob Marley sang "don't worry about a thing. 'Cause every little thing gonna be alright. Rise up this morning. smile with the rising sun. Three little birds....."

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