The Alex Crow. Andrew Smith

American Airspace

       Bringing Your Flag Back Home

       The Melting Man and the Beaver King

       Our Last Day in Jupiter

       Sunday in Sunday

       Max and His Brother

       Epilogue: Mason-Dixon-Brand Sauerkraut

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

PROLOGUE: HERE IS A PINWHEEL

       “Here, kitty-kitty.”

      The cat had a name—Alex—but General Parviz always called him in the same generic manner.

      General Parviz, all gilded epaulets and clinking medals, a breathing propaganda poster, repeated, cooing, “Here, kitty-kitty.”

      The Alex cat, a six-toed Manx, an official gift from the Hemingway estate and the people of the United States of America, swept its head from side to side, walking slow like a drowsy lion. The cat paused at the general’s slippered feet as though considering whether or not it actually wanted to jump up into General Parviz’s lap.

      The general patted his thigh softly, beckoning.

      “Kitty-kitty.”

      The cat leapt soundlessly.

      Then cat, general, palace, bodyguards, and approximately one-third the territory of the capital city blew up.

      Here, kitty-kitty.

      - - -

       Here is a handful of dirt.

      As far as its use as a medium for sustaining life—nourishing roots—it is perhaps the least capable dirt that can be found anywhere on the planet. To call it sand would be to give it some unwarranted windswept and oceanic dignity.

      It is simply dead dirt, and it fills my hand.

      I will tell you everything, Max, and we will carry these stories on our small shoulders.

      On my fourteenth birthday, Marden and I played outside the village in one of Mr Antonio’s fields with Sahar, Marden’s sister. We would have been in trouble if we had been discovered. There was a funeral that day for Mr Antonio’s cousin who had been killed fighting against the rebels, so it was expected that everyone attend.

      At school that morning, we performed a play. I had the role of Pierrot, Sahar my Columbine. One of the boys in our class played a joke on me: At the end of the day when we went to change out of our costumes to prepare for the funeral, somebody had taken all my clothes—everything—so I had to stay dressed as the mute white clown. I didn’t mind so much; the costume was loose and soft and made me feel disconnected, like a ghost drifting above the dead fields we played in.

      “This is Mr Barbar’s ram,” Marden said.

      Mr Barbar’s ram had been missing for more than a week.

      Sahar and I grabbed small handfuls of dirt. We poured our dirt into the eye sockets on the rotting skull. What else would kids do? Playing with dirt and horned carcasses was a good way to have fun.

      The thing looked like a caricature of the devil himself.

      When the FDJA came to the village that day—it was just after the mourners arrived back from the funeral—four of them took all the boys and made us go up to the third floor of the school building. I was still dressed as Pierrot; nobody would confess as to who the thief of Ariel’s clothing was.

      Of course, we all knew what was going to happen next, once the rebels got us into the upstairs classroom. We could already hear gunfire and cries coming from outside the school.

      The rebels bribed us with cigarettes and guns.

      What boy doesn’t want cigarettes and a gun?

      One of the men, his face hidden behind a red scarf, said to me, “What are you supposed to be?”

      “Pierrot,” I answered.

      He shook his head, confused.

      “You look like a boy-whore.”

      Ivan, a ten-year-old, puffed on his first cigarette and glared at me. I wanted to slap him. One of the FDJA men patted the boy’s head. We were all goners at this point.

      Everyone knew. It had been this way all our lives. Here, the deliberate cruelty of violence was a matter of fact; controlling, constraining, and understandable. Not so much in some of my other stories, Max.

      The rebels targeted the older boys, many of whom were approaching conscription age for the Republican Army. They taunted the boys with insults about patriotism and loyalty to capitalist puppet masters. One boy, Jean-Pierre, pissed himself when the man whose face was covered with the red snot-stiffened rag prodded his belly with a gun barrel. Naturally, this was very funny to the FDJA men. Who wouldn’t laugh at a sixteen-year-old boy who pissed his pants as he was about to be kidnapped by thugs with guns?

      I felt bad for Jean-Pierre, who, like the other chosen boys in the schoolroom, recited a robotic pledge of allegiance to the FDJA. He would have done the same thing on his eighteenth birthday to the Republican Army, anyway. So, who cared?

      We were all going to go with the FDJA now, or we would never leave this third-floor schoolroom. They promised us that we were old enough to make our way as men, even though some of the youngest boys were barely ten years old.

      My friend Marden was sixteen.

      When one of the men tried wrapping the red scarf of the FDJA around Marden’s neck, my friend swatted his hand away. Marden was always defiant like that—impulsive—and everyone knew it was a mistake. But what could we do?

      To make an example of him to the other boys, two of the FDJA men picked up Marden by his feet and threw him headfirst out the window as he kicked and scratched at them. But Marden didn’t scream or cry. I heard the impact of his body against the paving stones that lined the street below.

      I desperately wished I had my proper school clothes. I felt so isolated and noticeable in my thin white clown suit.

      Two of my schoolmates ran for the doorway that led to the stairs. The man with the hidden face fired at them and they tumbled down in a heap across the threshold.

      “Let’s go!” he said.

      I could only see his eyes peering out from a slit on the covering. He waved his gun to goad the remaining boys—there were five of us—over our friends’ bodies and out the door.

      One of the men videoed the slaughter in the schoolroom with his cell phone, sweeping it around and around until he focused directly on my face. Most of the white makeup I’d worn earlier had been wiped away, but I was still pale and painted. And I was crying. The video would be uploaded with the usual descriptions blaming all this on the Republican Army. People naturally believe things they see. Nobody argues with the irrefutable postings on YouTube.

      I was told that in America, many people believed FDJA stood for Freedom Democracy Jesus Army.

      They sent money.