Call Me Robby.

Call Me Robby.  Robby Brantly.

 

One alibi, don't believe everything I say.  I am a liar.  What I say, I say for me.  Language gets me what I want.  That's why it was invented.   The sooner you learn that . . .

 

The first time I pointed my gun and shot a man was on coming off Irish and into the MSR into the Green Zone.  I hated those convoys - small and light package, always carrying some VIP.  Why don't you just take a chopper and spare us the trouble?  Anyway, we are out there and this guy comes into our convoy.  The first shot was into the ground.  He stopped cold.  The guy was older, lumpy, mustache, not an engineer or lawyer.  I could see him pucker up and quiver.  There must have been 20 other people in the van he was driving.  We have the right of way, pal.  I felt two things - power and guilt.  Guilt because I was destroying something beautiful,  a rose or a sunset. Also I felt power.  There's nothing like dominating a man in the way prisoner rapes a man in jail or the way a man smears his dog's nose in the filth and the excreta that came from his bowels.  Those two emotions never leave you.  You can amplify the one and filter the other but you always feel both.  

 

We had this puppy that my sergeant was sweet on.  We would feed it - cute thing.  He had white fur, fluffy, big feet.  He was going to be a big dog someday.  Fatso would always feed it. I forgot what Fatso called it.   Didn't matter how many times I kicked it.  I only kicked it once. That dog loved me.  I kept looking at this dog and thinking, if you were born in the Colorado, or Georgia or even my home of Rock Hill, South Carolina, you would have had a chance.  It's the first time I ever wanted something that was born over here to be over there.  First Sergeant wanted all the dogs gone.  He said they carried diseases.  Top detailed the two cooks to kill all animals or pets that we had.  But I didn't want Van Damme to kill my dog.  So I took the dog outside the compound away toward the main gate.  The first shot didn't kill him.  It wounded him.  I finished him off with a rock.  It took a couple of times, but he was dead.

 

There's really only two things I am good at.  I am good with women.  It's really not that hard, once you do it as long as I have and I have been doing it for a while.  Myrtle Beach is an easy place to get laid. And I was very young the first time - too young.  But to be honest with you.  I like men.  I like being with another man.  I like both giving and receiving.  It's different but when you have a man in your mouth.  He is receiving pleasure because you are giving it to him.  He is giving the best parts of him to you and you have a position of trust.  I don't tell many people about that part of me.  I have a reputation to maintain.  What would Janice think?  And Amanda?  And Christine?  And Julie?  But I said it, if you believe it.

 

It's like this.  I like to cuddle with these guys after I am done.  But I don't want them over.  I usually go to their house or they come and they go.  No sleep overs.  I just don't want to deal with it.  A woman she can sleep over if she wants to. If they are with me you better believe they want to.

 

I watched a lot of porn over there.  I shared a hooch with Fatso before the Fat piece of garbage choked me.  I should have killed him when I had the chance.  When I did have some privacy.  I'd watch a lot of gang bangs.  Before she went to jail this pornographic actress, Paula Denton, held the record of most guys ejaculating inside her.  I wish I could have been there for that.  Sometimes I wish I was that pornographic actress taking in all that filth commingling with my soul.  And I would be there acting, "Yes!  Yes!  Give it to me."

 

Don't judge me.  I saw a lot strange things over there.  I remember walking into the Motor Pool.  Everyone in the motor pool lived in a connex.  Don't ask me why they wanted to live there.  Saddam built these stone palaces and these guys are all living in an open bay and every one of them has their lap tops out either looking at porn.  Jared showed me a woman a pool sucking off a dog.  I might like to have my bread buttered a certain way  sometimes but even I have my limits.  Jared's boss Amos is talking to his wife not five feet away.  Jared is not talking to his wife.  I guess if he caught her in bed with Weeblo, I wouldn't call her either.  I am just glad he hasn't caught me.

 

I am not very good at fighting and the idea of dying especially having my neck opened up with a blunt knife keeps me up late at night.  You know I have been criss crossing being home and being over there and back and forth, I loose my sense of what is real.  I make love to Janice.  I pound Amanda, have sex with Julie and I let Christine take me but I make love with Janice.  She loves me.  She is the only one that writes to me and sends me things.  Where was I?

 

A lot of times we would run out to these outposts to re-supply the guys. The guys would leave us alone a lot.  You would think that would be a good thing to have your freedom but I am 6'4 blonde 24 year old who weighs maybe 180 lbs?  (I haven't been running.)  So we see these guys hanging out at the hajji shops.  I don't know if they are one of them has a cellphone with my number on it.  One thing I do know, they won't have the jump on me so I spray the hajji shop.

 

Jared says to me, "Are you ok Robby?"

 

"I felt threatened."  I told him.

 

It happened so many times he stopped asking.  This was long after Fatso left.  (He couldn't soldier anymore.  Not after his wife left him.  You know he got me promoted.  This was after he found out about me and his old lady.  Get off my case will you?  This was before they were married.)  Fatso wouldn't have tolerated that of course, he wasn't afraid to die.  

 

Don't ask me how this happened but I running a patrol right before 15 minutes curfew.  I see this Muslim bitch and her kid.  She is talking trash and I am talking back to her.  I can't understand her and she me.  Suddenly I have to equalize this conversation so I pull out my 45 and level it to her head.  She must be about twenty feet away from me.  She is holding her kid's hand.  She just wouldn't shut up and she shouldn't have been on the street.  So I shoot her.  Bitch that she was.  I am a horrible shot but this bullet gets her between the eyes.  Her kid's crying.  He's holding his mother.  Blood is bleeding out her mouth.  I think she is cursing me in Persian.  Go figure, the Arabs have to speak Persian to let a real insult go.  This kid's a problem.  I don't need any witnesses so I take care of him too.

 

The guys aren't going to rat me out.  I have seen them do a lot worse.  But you know?  It doesn't matter how much bonus money they offer me, like it matters, all of it is gone and gone within weeks of me having it.  Sooner or later, my number will come up.  So I got out.  I got out on a medical, but whatever.  I get a check, drugs (some of it legal - and free to me) some of it not which I sell.  I am still young - a kid at 33.  

 

I am on that street next to the mosque and the kid and his Mom are both bleeding out and I am alone.  I have never been alone - not in a combat zone.  The kid gets up and I empty my mag into the kid.  Pieces of him are ripped away by the metal like a chainsaw to a teddy bear.  Then his bitch Muslim mother bloody chador and all gets up starts walking toward me.  I drop my 45 and pick up my M4 slung over my shoulder but it jams.  I have beat this thing with my bare hands.  She she is hissing and growling at me snapping at me and I am basing her in the face and choking her so that she turns blue.  Only its not that Muslim bitch, it's Janice.  I have woken up in my bed next to Janice and she has turned blue and isn't moving.  

 

She coughs.

 

She doesn't sleep over anymore.  No one does its just me.  Me and my drugs, my Jim Bean and my check. Call me Robby and I am liar.