Flashes of War. Katey Schultz

generally have made the writing life a life worth living—endless appreciation for Anne-Marie, Britt, Cam, Compton, Kyle, Mendy, Mary, Rosie, and Wesley. With regard to final revisions and the good work of digging in: Ester, Brendan, Jenny, and the fine state of Alaska.

      I spent 31 out of 36 months traveling across the United States while I wrote Flashes of War. Strangers hosted me for dinner; community members shared their homes; local arts organizations sponsored readings and events; students engaged during class; friends of friends reached out and made me feel welcome; colleagues accepted me; fellow artists shared their work and inspired my own; and perhaps most importantly, supporters new and old encouraged my journey without question. Their faith in what at many times felt like an impossibly long road ultimately helped me find my way home. Without their support, these stories could not have been written.

      Last but not least, thanks to the dependables: THE CLAW, Bob Dylan, Gus, and Duckie.

      This book is dedicated to my parents,

      who believed in me before I knew what belief was.

      Elizabeth Buss Schultz

      &

      William Henry Schultz

      While the Rest of America’s at the Mall

      It’s not quite sniper fire, but it isn’t random either. The hajis so much as hear me think, and they start gunning the water from their position on the bridge, bullets raining like a Carolina downpour. They can’t see me in the dark, so I toss a balled-up T-shirt far as I can toward enemy fire to mess with their thinking. They aim right for it, the shirt lurching like a live wire while I dip underwater and start swimming the opposite direction. By the time I’ve crawled up the banks of the Darya-ye Konar and radioed the airstrike on their exact location, the hajis are still standing there, shooting that shirt all the way to the Indus River.

      Dark-swimming is my gig this tour. Navy SEALS. You’d never believe me, but the underwater night goggles make this place look like the tropics. Bullets glitter through the water in slow-mo, little Hershey’s Kisses moving in silver arcs the way I remember Savannah tossing them to me on her fourth birthday. “It’s raining kisses, Daddy,” she sang. She made up the tune and it’s almost a joke now, trying to think of the last time I made up a song for no particular reason.

      Any second now, that bridge will sizzle, and Spalding will crack some joke about the Konar looking more like haji soup, then LT will pluck that damn tea tree toothpick out of his mouth and nod and say, “Good work, son.” So corny it could be from the movies, and I wish this was, all of us busting drug convoys 50 klicks north of Kabul, while the rest of America’s at the mall.

      With the Burqa

      With the burqa, it was like this: the world came at me in apparitions, every figure textured by the mesh filter in front of my eyes. In a city with so much death, it was easy to believe half of the people I saw were ghosts. Women sat like forgotten boulders along the sidewalks in Kabul. We begged. We prayed.

      Now, wearing the burqa is a choice. Without it, the sun is so bright that when I walk it feels like swimming through sticky, yellow air. I can see clearly, but there’s nothing left of my city to look at. A missile that didn’t detonate sleeps like a gigantic baby in my garden, cradled in a ten-foot crater of dirt and rubble. There used to be a brick wall around my family’s home. My father built that wall. Now, my father is gone, and the wall is gone, and even the tools for restoring the wall have been looted from our doorstep.

      One night, I dream that the missile takes root. The garden groans and stretches, growing rounds of ammunition and grenades. In the dream, the entire neighborhood comes to harvest from my weapons cache. I wander through the rows of weaponry, tugging bullets by their brass tips. They fall into my palms like succulent berries. The grenades are more difficult, but my touch is soft. I set them in my satchel like fresh eggs and carry them to the market where servicemen from the base are having a holiday.

      They come to my booth reluctantly at first, then hungrily when they realize the weapons have grown from the earth. Here’s a bullet for the sergeant who pestered my children in the middle of the night. A handful for his team members, the way they looked at us like something to be pitied. And the grenades? Those are for the pilot who dropped the missile on my house. Watch how trustingly he takes the satchel, hugging it like a new parent. When everything is sold, I leave the market and slowly walk home. I hear the pop and whir of bullets first, then the grenades explode. I don’t have to turn around to see what disaster looks like.

      When I wake, the sun is a ball of flame arcing over my city. There’s no escape from its heat. I reach for my burqa and cover myself once more. It’s damp and dark in here, just like the grave where my father’s bones have turned to dust.

      Home on Leave

      One minute Bradley’s at the dinner table shoveling homemade rhubarb pie into his mouth, and the next he’s tearing down the driveway in his Ford Ranger, clean Arkansas air slapping him across the face with that unmistakable feeling of home. It’s been ten months and twenty-three days, but who’s counting? Not Bradley. Not anymore. Not since he kicked off his combat boots, hugged his mom, and split a six-pack with his old man. Not since now, miles clicking along the county road as the Ranger pushes seventy, and Bradley tries to make it to his brother Jared’s house in under ten, like before.

      Before. His dad warned him about that. Bradley hardly listened. What could a gristmill manager teach an eighteen-year-old Army recruit gearing up for 21st Century warfare? But sure enough, the advice whistled in Bradley’s ears as he rounded the corner near the gas station and turned right over Little Patmos Creek. “There’s a before and after, son,” his dad had told him. “The trick is not getting stuck fantasizing about either one.” It made no sense at the time and didn’t make any more sense now. Bradley still owed the Army three years. “After” was hardly a thought.

      Out past the beam of the Ranger’s headlights, past the two-block town of Patmos, the hillsides of Hempstead County bristled in the early winter air. Before he enlisted, Bradley hadn’t seen much further than that. But tonight, tomorrow night, heck, for the next two weeks—who cared that he was small-town? That he wasn’t even old enough to buy Bud Light? He’d been to Iraq and back. Sure, he was out of harm’s way most of his deployment, replacing gaskets and fixing flats as a wheeled vehicle mechanic on a forward operating base south of Tikrit, but who knew? Nobody back home had heard of fobbits, the derogatory name combat soldiers used for the likes of Bradley.

      At the party—a welcome home thrown by his brother—he’d expected the backslapping and WMD jokes that came later that evening. Even the uncertain gazes from folks who probably thought he’d been killing Iraqi citizens. What he hadn’t expected was this: the soft-eyed looks all the girls gave him, the respectful nods from guys he didn’t even know. In the ten seconds it took Bradley to hop out of his truck and walk across Jared’s yard, the entire party’s eyes found him. He felt their attention like a shot of adrenaline. He’d been places since graduation. He must know things now; he might even be traumatized. And brave. Surely he was very, very brave.

      “Bradley!” Jared took the porch steps in one leap and rammed his chest into his brother’s. “Man, you’re solid as a rock! Look at you!” He pounded Bradley’s arm a few times and jostled him.

      “It’s good to see you! Thanks for this.” Bradley waved at the porch filled with partiers, plastic keg cups in their hands. A few friends he hadn’t seen since graduation waved back. Most folks, though, he didn’t even recognize.

      Jared slung his arm over Bradley’s shoulders and walked him toward the porch. “Are you kidding? You’re all anybody talks about in Patmos these days. Hometown hero.”

      “Really?” Bradley asked.

      “I’ll bet you the crack of my ass you’ll be in the paper next week. Home on leave. Patmos’ very own.” They ambled up the porch steps, the crowd parting for them as they moved. “Great citizens of Patmos, Arkansas,” Jared bellowed. “Private Bradley Coates, a.k.a RAMBO.” A cheer shot up from the porch, a few dogs barking at the outburst. “Welcome home, little bro. We fuckin’ love you. Don’t