It Happened in October
by Maggie DeMay
It’s October again.
Fall is in the air. My birthday’s coming up.
So are the memories…
Archive for
Jul 27
What’d They Call You That For?
by Jeffrey Paolano
“That your name?” asks the one the bartender welcomed with “Hey, Galucci, how you doin’?” Galucci swipes a handback across his foam-filled mustache after a satisfying guzzle from the frozen schooner and thrusts his midlife belly against the bar, rubbing with his marqued polo the ancient wood massaged to ruin by thousands of such bellies.
The Fraternity of Death
by Dean Ray
My heart was pounding as the orders came through my helmet’s headset. I knew the blast earlier was a rocket propelled grenade, and not a signal flare like I had considered. Leaning out of the left side of the helicopter, my bulky, bulletproof flight vest banged clumsily on my massive black chainsaw of a machine gun. I tried to get a closer look at who just tried to blow us out of the sky, while simultaneously listening to the frantic transmissions coming through the radio.
Dolphins and Kite
by Thomas McDade
I had a bit of a scare. The Leadership Exam was much more difficult than I expected, hadn’t studied worth a shit. I thought I might have failed but lucked out with a seventy-six. I worked steadily after, caught up with commissary ledger postings. I wanted to get off the ship but didn’t want to take a taxi or bus trip up to the Naval Air Station at Sigonella. Around one I showered and threw on civilian clothes. Wore for the first time a madras shirt I’d bought at the Norfolk Naval Base Exchange. Close examination revealed no irregularities that were common in threads purchased there. Morgan, the uptight Jack of the Dust, caught me as I was leaving the Supply Department berthing area. “Hey, Bill Dean, there’s a #10 can of peanut butter gone missing.” I returned to the office to make a note of it. Was it mischief, tossed over the side, or love of the stuff? Morgan would be pounding on the Commissary Officer’s stateroom door next.
America, Diagonally
by Megan Woods
Twenty-two a day. By gunshot, car, hanging, poison, blade. Sometimes alone, draining away in a hidden place. Sometimes in full view, daring anyone to stop them. Sometimes in a dark corner of the night, amidst tears and vomit. Sometimes in a red haze. Our hero’s life didn’t end in any of these ways. At least not outwardly. Oh, he made a few half-hearted attempts, but his heart was never in it. He didn’t have one particular death. He started dying on his last deployment and never stopped. There are many people within one man, and the ones inside our hero died one at a time, a few at a time. Some died on raids and ambushes, some from IED’s and others from gunfights in Sadr City. He had many people in him waiting to die.
Sex with Strangers
by Joshua Callaway
I step foot back on home soil, every bit as foreign as the place I just left.
We spot each other simultaneously.
I smile, and she smiles back.
My heart pounds in a mix of fear and anticipation, like being in a firefight.
We embrace awkwardly, both of our bodies tense.
I feel her tremble as I place my hot mouth of her soft lips.
She doesn’t know me, not anymore.
We wait by the carousel in awkward silence hand in hand.
Palms slick.
She wants to let go, wants to wipe her hand clean on her skin tight jeans.
I want this too, but we hang on, because that’s what is expected.
The hotel is a five minute drive from the airport, but it seems much closer and we arive much too soon.
She has already checked in so we go straight to our room.
We make small talk as we strip back to back, shying away from each other’s glances.
Naked strangers.
We look each other up and down for the first time.
I smile, and she smiles back.
We kiss once more, deeper this time, searching for familiarity.
On the bed in a tangled mess of flesh we find each other again.
I tell her I love her.
She says she loves me too.
Joshua Callaway is a medically retired army veteran who served more than fourteen years as an airborne infantryman. He fought in both Afghanistan (03-04 & 11-12) and Iraq (07-08). He is a father of three boys and currently attends Grossmont College, where he is pursuing an MFA in creative writing.
Tommy Can You Hear Me?
by William Lapham
Tommy and I had been living more or less together in a trench dug in the earth in France for going on two weeks. We didn’t dig the thing; it was waiting for us when we got there. Tommy had just turn eighteen but he looked twelve, freckles, red hair. Not that anyone could tell, two weeks after getting there, no bath, no shave, no hot food, he looked old.
Returning Home
by Dane Bowker
The bullets snap
And barrels pop
While the earth beneath me ripples
I realize then that I’m alive
And love my brothers by my side
In this land
Of desert sand
I’ve done the things that make a man
Pushed away the fears that haunt
Those things that most will not confront
Returning home
To a world unknown
I feel that life has passed me by
A host of faces but knowing few
They care not for me and thus withdrew
Up I get
And don my shoes
To work I go where nothing’s new
Boredom pines for days long past
Where bullets whispered amongst the grass
Weary now
And dull of eye
I reflect upon a dreary life
Fixing dinner I slip and slash
My upturned wrist above the trash
The streets are quiet
The earth is still
So much yet left unfulfilled
Collapsing fast as I lie down
I realize then I’ll die alone
Dane Bowker was one of the first members of the Afghanistan – Pakistan Hands Program, serving in Kandahar from 2010 to 2011 and Ghazni from 2013 to 2014. He was one of the only Department of Defense civilians operating at the village level in Village Stability Operations and worked closely with Afghan Local Police and the Afghan National Army. He currently resides in the National Capital Region and is looking for his next big adventure.
Cockpit
by Sarah Estime
I’ve invested too much time into the military to be called sweetie and honey. I wonder how many toolboxes I have to tote for these old timers to respect me. I’m out in the cold, I’m wrenching wrenches, I’m climbing stairs, I’m tolerating their stenches. And they joke but dammit breaking a nail really hurts. I could clip them but I just painted them and they match with my shirt.
My confidence has to assert itself from somewhere. I mean, my parents were army so my childhood was austere. My bedroom was a barrack and they called push-ups and suicides rearing. So having a greasy man with his voice thick with phlegm, his laugh dry and cracking, exclaiming, “She just wants to be like one of the boys!” isn’t my ideal job. “Haven’t updated my sensitivity training,” they say. I’m never offended. I’m just disappointed the jokes weren’t delivered better.
I’m not sure if I was made for the military or if the military was made for me. There was a time I had an accident and a maroon streak of you-know-what trickled through my pants. And then someone made a joke and I turned bright red and then they told me to stop acting like I was on my period and I said, “Well, I can’t.” I questioned humanity. Should I be the kind of feminist that loves to talk about the C-5 because I don’t. I have to somehow follow my sister’s West Point prestige. Like how am I gonna do that?
Well, you get married like a large number of enlistees do. It’s not tradition if you don’t do it within a month of knowing each other. And then you move to base and complain about the rent. Your husband gets put on nights and a resentment comes out of nowhere. You have a kid, you get into debt, you out-process, you think you’re set. But you become a vet and then life really isn’t fair because you learn that the world is “paying for health insurance” and “mowing lawns.” And if you’ve been stationed in Delaware (and stuck there as a result) you totally forget what a sales tax is.
But the military is also a wonderful place filled with joy. You move quicker, you think quicker, you develop the kind of photographic memory that makes you believe you’re a superhero. And if you stick it out with the guy you met in tech school, the only thing provoking you to get a divorce would be your one foot newborn giving you a month-long cold.
Sarah Estime is an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force. When she is not working her day job, she is composing works related to literary fiction. She been published by the African American Review, Burner Magazine, and O-Dark-Thirty.
O-Dark-Thirty 