The Bone Clocks

“I suspect, Austin, that the Americans you’ve met in the banking world aren’t high school dropouts from Nebraska whose best friend got shot by a smiley Iraqi teenager holding a bag of apples. A teenager whose dad got shredded by a gunner on a passing Humvee last week while he fixed the TV aerial. A gunner whose best friend took a dum-dum bullet through the neck from a sniper on a roof only yesterday. A sniper whose sister was in a car that stalled at an intersection as a military attachй’s convoy drove up, prompting the bodyguards to pepper the vehicle with automatic fire, knowing they’d save the convoy from a suicide bomber if they were right, but that Iraqi law wouldn’t apply to them if they were wrong. Ultimately, wars escalate by eating their own shit, shitting bigger and eating bigger.”

I can see that my metaphor has overstepped the mark.

Lee Webber’s chatting with a friend at the neighboring table.

His mum asks, “Can I tempt anyone with the last slice of cake?”

MY FREE EYE, the one not pressed into the dust and grit, located the black marine and I found myself endowed with lip-reading powers as he told Aziz, “Here’s a shot for you, motherfucker!”

“He’s working for me!” I spat out grit.

The soldier glared my way. “ Whatdid you say?”

The Chinook was moving away, thank God, and he could hear me. “I’m a journalist,” I mumbled, trying to twist my mouth upwards, “a British journalist.” My voice was dry and mangled.

A midwestern drawl above my ear said, “The fuckyou are.”

“I’m a British journalist, my name’s Ed Brubeck, and”—I did my best to sound like Christopher Hitchens—“I’m working for Spyglassmagazine. Good photographers are hard to find so, please, ask your man not to point that thing at his head.”

“Major! Fuckface here says he’s a British journalist.”

“Says he’s a what?” A crunch of boots approached. The boots’ owner barked into my ear: “You speak English?”

“Yes, I’m a British journalist, and if—”

“You’re able to sub stantiate this claim?”

“My accreditation’s in the white car.”

There’s a sniff. “What white car?”

“The one in the corner of the field. If your private would take his knee off my neck, I’d point.”

“Media representatives are s’posed to carry credentials ontheir persons.”

“If a militiaman found a press pass on me, they’d kill me. Major, my neck, if you wouldn’t mind?”

The knee was removed. “Up. Real slow.” My legs were stiff. I wanted to massage my neck but daren’t in case they thought I was reaching for a weapon. The officer removed his aviator glasses. His age was hard to gauge: late twenties, but his face was encrusted with grime. HACKENSACK was stitched under his officer’s insignia. “So whythefuck’s a British journalist dressed like a raghead partying in a field with genu ineragheads round a shot-down OH-58D?”

“I’m in this field because there’s news here, and I’m dressed like this because looking too Western gets you shot.”

“Looking too fuckin’ Arabic almost got you shot.”

“Major, would you please let that man go?” I nodded towards Aziz. “He’s my photographer. And”—I found Nasser—“the guy in the blue shirt, over there. My fixer.”

Major Hackensack let us dangle for a few seconds. “Okay.” Aziz and Nasser were allowed to stand and we lowered our arms. “British—that’s England, right?”

“England plus Scotland plus Wales, with Northern Ire—”

“Nottingham. ’S that England or Britain?”

“Both, like Boston’s in Massachusetts and the U.S.”

The major thought I was a smartass. “My brother married a nurse in Nottingham and I never saw such a rancid shit-hole. Ordered a ham sandwich and they gave me a slice of pink slime between two pieces of dried shit. Guy who made it was an Arab. Every last cabdriver was an Arab. Your country’s an occupied fuckin’ territory, my friend.”

I shrugged. “There has been a lot of immigration.”

The major leaned to one side, hoicked up a bomb of spit, and let it drop. “You live in the Green Zone, British journalist?”

“No. I’m staying in a hotel across the river. The Safir.”

“Up close and personal with the real Iraqis, huh?”

“The Green Zone’s one city, Baghdad’s another.”

“Lemme tell you the deal with real Iraqis. Real Iraqis say, ‘There’s no security since the invasion!’ I say, ‘Then try not killing, stabbing, and robbing each other.’ Real Iraqis say, ‘Americans raid our houses at night, they don’t respect our culture.’ I say, ‘Then stop shooting at us fromyour houses, you fuckfaces.’ Real Iraqis say, ‘Where’s our sewers, our schools, our bridges?’ I say, ‘Where’s the shrinkwrapped billions of dollars we gave you to buildyour sewers, schools, and bridges?’ Real Iraqis say, ‘Why don’t we have power or water?’ I say, ‘Who blew up the substations and tapped the fuckin’ pipes we built?’ Oh, and their clerics say, ‘Hey, our mosques need painting.’ I say, ‘Then get your holy asses up a ladder and paint them your-fuckin’-selves!’ Put that in your newspaper. What isyour newspaper, anyhow?”

“It’s Spyglassmagazine. It’s American.”

“What’s it like—like Timemagazine?”