being right about 9/11. They didn’t print the word “bitches” in the paper, but the message came across all the same. The recruiter back on Broad Street, the old bastard who had suckered Brutus in the first place, saw the letter and sent a copy to Sullivan. As punishment, Brutus was confined to the base for twelve months.
He tapped his pen on the cover of his journal until Sparky got annoyed, then kept doing it. If it wasn’t running drugs, what else?Weapons were a possibility, but everyone already owned guns in Eastern Europe. They had more guns than they could use. Wasn’t a soul left who needed to buy guns from the army—with the possible exception of Brutus himself, who was still without a working firearm. Maybe someone over in the restricted camp was picking up some supplies on the down-low, cattle prods and waterboards and shit—and providing Sullivan with a taste of the action.
The whole thing could go down like this: Sullivan will send Brutus off the base, placing him at an even greater disadvantage because suddenly he would no longer be just a sodomite but also AWOL. While he’s away, Sullivan will drop a couple keys of coke in Brutus’s top dresser drawer, call in the pigs, and have his ass thrown in the pen. Hungary had fucked-up drug laws, the harshest of any non-Muslim country, all intended as a suck up to NATO and the E.U. If Brutus got nabbed with as much as a pinprick of resin in the bottom of a pipe, it would mean a
minimum
of a year in jail.
Sparky switched off the radio and headed out, so Brutus turned it on again and put in Fela Kuti’s
Expensive Shit.
More likely than not, though, Sullivan probably planned to simply send him on some goose chase intended to frighten him into becoming a model soldier. Scare him straight. Instill in him the fear of God and of his earthly incarnation, Uncle Sam. Brutus would get his delinquent ass kicked, caught with drugs or something, and be given the ultimatum: toe the line, quit the political bullshit, and Sullivan will make all his problems disappear, including the photograph. What a guy.
Brutus wrote the date at the top of the page. Under it, he made a to-do list:
1. Reread
Julius Caesar
They might have a copy at the P.X.
2. Write letter to Mom
Later. He couldn’t even think about that yet. What was he going to say? “Dear Mambo, My commanding officer has a picture of me getting fucked up the ass so I have to go buy some drugs for him. Love, B.” Doubtful.
3. Write letter to Joan
He wanted to tell his sister the whole story, start to finish. And then he would get Magda to mail it for him, in case Sullivan was going through the mail. Couldn’t be too careful. The army could open a letter without anyone knowing the envelope had been touched by human hands, read the contents, and rewrite it on the same type of stationery in the same handwriting. Signature and everything. Brutus wrote it all down for Joan, including the conversation with Sullivan, and hid it in an envelope from one of her letters.
4. Write letter to J. J. Another tough one—later.
5. Fix pistol or find new
6. Kill whitey
He had about three grand in cash, which would go with him. The weapon wouldn’t be a problem. He could steal Sparky’s and leave him the piece-of-shit piece that didn’t shoot. Punk deserved it anyway.
Number six was a joke.
5.
When he got up the next morning, snow covered the ground and was blowing in every direction. He didn’t need to be on duty until the afternoon and he wasn’t hungry, so he skipped breakfast to run some errands. He could grab something later if he got desperate, but he hated to eat the hardened fecal matter that passed for meat at those fast-food places. Burger King was terrible enough back home; he didn’t even want to think about what went into the Hungarian equivalent of the Whopper. Maybethat’s what his rattraps were for. But sometimes there was no avoiding it. A man’s got to eat.
He pulled his jacket tighter, huffing it
He tapped his pen on the cover of his journal until Sparky got annoyed, then kept doing it. If it wasn’t running drugs, what else?Weapons were a possibility, but everyone already owned guns in Eastern Europe. They had more guns than they could use. Wasn’t a soul left who needed to buy guns from the army—with the possible exception of Brutus himself, who was still without a working firearm. Maybe someone over in the restricted camp was picking up some supplies on the down-low, cattle prods and waterboards and shit—and providing Sullivan with a taste of the action.
The whole thing could go down like this: Sullivan will send Brutus off the base, placing him at an even greater disadvantage because suddenly he would no longer be just a sodomite but also AWOL. While he’s away, Sullivan will drop a couple keys of coke in Brutus’s top dresser drawer, call in the pigs, and have his ass thrown in the pen. Hungary had fucked-up drug laws, the harshest of any non-Muslim country, all intended as a suck up to NATO and the E.U. If Brutus got nabbed with as much as a pinprick of resin in the bottom of a pipe, it would mean a
minimum
of a year in jail.
Sparky switched off the radio and headed out, so Brutus turned it on again and put in Fela Kuti’s
Expensive Shit.
More likely than not, though, Sullivan probably planned to simply send him on some goose chase intended to frighten him into becoming a model soldier. Scare him straight. Instill in him the fear of God and of his earthly incarnation, Uncle Sam. Brutus would get his delinquent ass kicked, caught with drugs or something, and be given the ultimatum: toe the line, quit the political bullshit, and Sullivan will make all his problems disappear, including the photograph. What a guy.
Brutus wrote the date at the top of the page. Under it, he made a to-do list:
1. Reread
Julius Caesar
They might have a copy at the P.X.
2. Write letter to Mom
Later. He couldn’t even think about that yet. What was he going to say? “Dear Mambo, My commanding officer has a picture of me getting fucked up the ass so I have to go buy some drugs for him. Love, B.” Doubtful.
3. Write letter to Joan
He wanted to tell his sister the whole story, start to finish. And then he would get Magda to mail it for him, in case Sullivan was going through the mail. Couldn’t be too careful. The army could open a letter without anyone knowing the envelope had been touched by human hands, read the contents, and rewrite it on the same type of stationery in the same handwriting. Signature and everything. Brutus wrote it all down for Joan, including the conversation with Sullivan, and hid it in an envelope from one of her letters.
4. Write letter to J. J. Another tough one—later.
5. Fix pistol or find new
6. Kill whitey
He had about three grand in cash, which would go with him. The weapon wouldn’t be a problem. He could steal Sparky’s and leave him the piece-of-shit piece that didn’t shoot. Punk deserved it anyway.
Number six was a joke.
5.
When he got up the next morning, snow covered the ground and was blowing in every direction. He didn’t need to be on duty until the afternoon and he wasn’t hungry, so he skipped breakfast to run some errands. He could grab something later if he got desperate, but he hated to eat the hardened fecal matter that passed for meat at those fast-food places. Burger King was terrible enough back home; he didn’t even want to think about what went into the Hungarian equivalent of the Whopper. Maybethat’s what his rattraps were for. But sometimes there was no avoiding it. A man’s got to eat.
He pulled his jacket tighter, huffing it
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