Cruel Zinc Melodies

67

In the Corps they told us you can get used to anything. Which they proceeded to prove by sending us to the islands, where everything, from bugs no bigger than a pin-prick to forty-foot crocodiles, and the snakes who ate the crocs, had people on the menu. While we hunted and were hunted by the Venageti who sometimes had the same taste. So a little remote midnight mood music from down in the ground didn’t keep me awake longer than about eight seconds.

I had some remarkable dreams. I remember that. But I don’t recall what they were. Not even the Dead Man could winkle them out later. Which he found more irksome than troubling.

Sunshine was sneaking through cracks in the guard shack’s wall when Saucerhead shook me awake. Bent-nose types snored around me. The place was crowded. But that wasn’t keeping Figgie Joe from cooking breakfast. ‘‘How you like your eggs, Mr. Garrett?’’

‘‘Just scramble them up. It’s iron rations time. Something up, Saucerhead?’’

‘‘Me. The sun. And now you. You got work to do. I figured you might ought to get on it.’’

I listened. I heard hammering, sawing, cussing, and a lot more hammering. What I didn’t hear was any indignant heavy metal music from way down deep in the ground. ‘‘I take it the whole crew showed up today.’’

Saucerhead grunted. He sipped from a mug of tea so potent I could smell it over the stinks of cooking and sleeping thugs. ‘‘You got your bluff in on them, Garrett.’’

I asked, ‘‘You guys have any dreams?’’

‘‘Everybody has dreams,’’ Figgie Joe said as he splatted my eggs onto a tin plate. ‘‘You’re gonna wanna eat fast. We only got four plates and four mugs.’’

‘‘I mean really weird dreams. I had some classics but I can’t remember them now.’’

‘‘I get them kind all the time.’’

‘‘Me too,’’ Tharpe said. ‘‘But I’d say, it feels like last night they was more potent than usual.’’

I ate scrambled eggs that hadn’t come out half bad. ‘‘You got a new girlfriend, Head?’’

‘‘When would I have found time for that?’’

‘‘Graziella, then?’’ Wasn’t that the name that Singe mentioned? Something like that? ‘‘Somebody’s been civilizing you. Figgie Joe. Decent job on the eggs, brother.’’

‘‘My short hitch I was a cook. Division headquarters.’’

I raised an eyebrow. Figgie Joe didn’t look like a lifer. And wasn’t, of course. Not old enough.

The ‘‘short hitch’’ was your first voluntary re-up after you survived your obligated five. It lasted two more years. You gained all kinds of perks on account of you were there by choice now. It was a mutual tryout. If you completed your short hitch and still favored the soldier’s life, then you re-upped for the long hitch. Twenty years. For the rest of your life, in effect. Troopers who survived the long hitch are only slightly more common than frog fur coats.

I never figured it out but definitely don’t recall any shortage of lifer noncoms during my five. Of course, all the stupid and stubborn guys got weeded out by the Invincible early on. After that it was plain dumb bad luck that ended an individual story. That or getting too close to, or caring too much about, the new fish in your keeping.

I asked, ‘‘How’d you get into this racket?’’

‘‘You take work where you find it, slick. Ain’t a lot of jobs for mess cooks.’’

Ain’t a lot of jobs. Period. It will take years for the Karentine economy to adjust to the sudden outbreak of peace.

The Venageti, having lost the war, have it worse than we do here. The battles that settled it all gobbled up most of their nobles and sorcerers. The peace dividend down there has produced a crop of ‘‘flayers,’’ unemployed soldiers who survive by plunder and rapine practiced on their own people.

I told Figgie Joe, ‘‘You surprised me. You like cooking?’’ He went all shifty-eyed.

‘‘I’ll take that as a yes.’’

He didn’t think his pals would consider cooking fit work for a manly man. I told him, ‘‘I know a restaurant guy who’ll be looking for cooks pretty soon. I’ll drop your name. Hey, Head. Are you on a mission for Dean Creech or my athletically challenged sidekick?’’

‘‘I don’t follow.’’

‘‘It’s awful early to drag me out.’’

‘‘Tough. I told you. There’s work to do. Sooner you get on it, the sooner it gets done. And the sooner I got me a spot for one of my night guys to lie down.’’

I began to retail some routine protest. He cut me off. ‘‘Don’t matter if you are the guy what handles the payroll. There’s stuff that’s got to be done. Sharing my guard shack with management ain’t one of them. It’s just a courtesy.’’

I started to hand my plate and utensils back to brother Figgie Joe. He gave me a hard look. ‘‘There’s a couple barrels outside. The one with the yellow paint splash is for washing. Don’t use the other one. That’s for drinking.’’

Being management didn’t get me a whole lot from these guys.

They were my kind. But maybe I wasn’t theirs anymore.