Free Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre

me to remain calm. I knew what bombs did to these trucks. I had seen that bloody mess. The Americans, with all their guns, could not defend us from those bombs. They could not defend themselves. And who better than we Iraqis who rode willingly in the back of an American truck would our countrymen rather see turned to a bloody mess?
    I tapped my foot, hummed to myself, and fidgeted as the drive wore on. Then I decided it was foolish, all of us taking pains to not look at each other. So I spoke to the ridiculous old men.
    They would not let me, not at first. They turned away, cleared their throats, and looked at the sky. I became angry about this, so I sat up and shouted over the noise of the engine, “Shaku maku! Assalamu alaikum!”
    The old men shifted in their seats.
    I spread my arms wide and shouted in English, “What’s up, my uncles?”
    Nothing. I leaned back and sighed. “We are all doomed. Yes, my uncles? This is true? Should we be bored as well?”
    Someone groaned, so I sat up once again.
    “You agree, uncle? Yes? Then I say we introduce ourselves. I’ll start. My name is Hans Blix. They sent me here to ask if any of you have any weapons of mass destruction. Maybe at home? Maybe in your garden? Even the smallest weapon of mass destruction would help.” Funny, I thought.
    The oldest man, the one with the mustache of pure gray, spoke. He stared straight ahead and asked in high Arabic, “Did you learn English from television?”
    I smiled and answered in English, “Yes, uncle. Absolutely. You?”
    “Maybe you’d like us to think that.” The old man kept to his Arabic. “To me, you sound like a child of Mansour. Was it Baghdad University where you learned?”
    “Why? Do you recognize me? Were you a professor?”
    “I recognize men in the morgue. Until then we are strangers.”
    “Then what better time to introduce ourselves, uncle?”
    Finally, the old man turned to face me. “These jokes, young man,” he said in English. “These are the jokes of a bachelor. The jokes of a childless man. You should keep these jokes to yourself.”
    I nodded. “I understand, my uncle. Apologies.” I put my hand over my heart. “I will think of some Saddam jokes. This is okay, now? Yes?”
    No one laughed.
    The convoy bounced around Lake Habbaniyah, vast and green. The long route around, too. We crept into the shadows of the Taqaddum plateau, the long-forbidden place where Saddam had kept his air base. We turned sharply at the dusty cliffs before drifting back to the river, the green fields, the palm trees, and the reeds.
    Finally, the truck made a hard left onto a paved road, almost hidden, and we started up the maze of bluffs. The river fell away. The engine noise grew frantic and the tires slipped once before finding their grip on the road. A gate appeared and the flat mess of the old air base grew beyond it.
    The eyes of the old men became wide. They were pulled to the edge of the bench and then to their feet, straining to see through the veil of dust and exhaust into the place where the great man had kept his fighter planes and bombs. Where friends of theirs had long ago been taken in the night and made to disappear. Where the Americans now lived, gazing down at the river and their spoils.
    I kept to my seat and stared back over the tailgate to the river winding north, to the ribbons of green holding fast to the bank and to the dirt and the horizon besieged by it. Then the truck kicked, turned a corner, and the river was gone.
    We stopped again for a young marine to come aboard the truck and check our new identification cards. Sweat poured down his pale face, but he did not bother with it. The green canvas of his chin strap soaked it up.
    The old men offered their identification with both hands, thumbs and forefingers gripping the corners. They held the cards just below their faces and peered over like schoolboys, nodding and trying to smile like Americans. All teeth and no shame.
    The marine put a gloved finger