Royce Mullins and The Case of Virtue's Burn, A Novel: Chapter 7

Royce Mullins and The Case of Virtue’s Burn, A Novel: Chapter 7

by Jeff Hart

Let me tell you a little story about your client. I know by looking at you, not to mention by the way you throw a punch, that you’ve never served. You city boys never have to. Too many opportunities for you, too much life to live. Even a guy living like you are, like a real dirtbag by the look of this place, even you probably think you got it too good to hump around the dunes and light up some Arabs, am I right?

I don’t resent that. I sure don’t want it to come off that way. It’s a volunteer army, after all. Me and Pilgrim, we wanted to be out there. We got reasons. We work on a different wavelength of thought than a pink piece of cosmopolitan pussy such as yourself. What I’m telling you, Mr. Detective, is that you don’t have the frame of reference necessary to really understand this story. All I expect from you is to nod politely when I speak and, when I’m finished, to agree in no uncertain terms to turn that son of a bitch Paul Fennel over to us at your earliest convenience.

Regardless of what you might think, cozily napping in your ignorance, the war effort is on. Not your fault. You could watch the news morning and night and still not comprehend the vast amount of bone dry, sun-bleached, one camel desert shitholes that we currently occupy. Don’t let the suits fool you, we are still very much out there. Guys like Pilgrim and I are still putting hoods over the heads of villagers and dragging them off into the night to have our way with them.

I’m just kidding. We would never.

I’d tell you where we were stationed, but I doubt you’d know the city, maybe not even the country. The place was a particularly bad one and our unit a uniquely bloody one. A very high concentration of purple hearts. I’ve got a couple myself. Pilgrim over there, he don’t talk so much anymore on account of the things he’s seen and done. We’ve had fingers and toes spill down from the sky like confetti. It’s why when we come to New York and find it raining Chinese garbage, I just turn to my buddy Pilgrim and say hey, this is an improvement.

You know what an IED is, Mr. Detective? It’s a thing that explodes. These Arabs been living in the desert for a billion years, drinking each other’s piss to stay hydrated. They’re resourceful. Villages just full up with al-MacGuyvers, turning Beta-Maxes into bombs. Our company leader, he used to love quoting us statistics about how we were like a magnet for the things. How there were five booby-traps out there for every man. Guess what happened to him.

Then one day the brass sends us a new kid. By the look of him, I don’t see how he made it through basic. He’s a skinny thing, weak, and they don’t make sun screen strong enough for him. It’s hot as balls out in those deserts, my friend, but this new kid is shuddering all the time, like he’s got the chills. He don’t belong out there in the shit with guys like me and Pilgrim, but they say he’s some kind of genius. You know what they tell us to call him? A safety consultant! Isn’t that funny?

This is your pal Paul Fennel I’m talking about.

I’ll be damned if things don’t get better. Casualties start dropping. Fennel, he can barely speak above a whisper while in our presence, but we learn to listen in a hurry because he’s like a bomb sniffing dog. He tells us what rocks to drive around, what doors not to kick down, what stereos not to unplug. We listen. And shit just stops exploding.

He can’t explain how he knows what he knows, of course, but then again we ain’t asking. It’s like not talking to your pitcher during a no-hitter, you know? Fennel, he creeps everybody out, but we like him. We feel safe when he’s around. We feel like we got a chance, like it’s not just a dismemberment lottery.

One time there’s this teenage rag-head that Fennel points out. Teenage might be doing this kid a favor. He’s young, anyway. Fennel points him out and says, him. That one. Now you might think we’re all monsters out there, like we relish the bloodshed, but that’s not true. There’s some debate about this. The kid, he’s getting closer, sort of like he’s working up the nerve. Somebody’s got to make a decision. A buddy of ours, Derek May, he shoots this kid and we approach and sure enough he’s loaded up with enough homemade plastic to take out a city block.
Everybody pats Fennel on the back after that one.

A couple days later, we’re stopped to refuel. Derek takes a couple steps away from the group to piss, he steps in something, and he explodes. Everybody’s screaming. It’s like they forgot what it was like. Fennel though, he’s not screaming. He’s just staring off at where Derek used to be.

I catch up with Fennel later. He looks sick about the whole thing. He’s crying into his hands. We never talked much, him and I, but he’s one of us. My heart goes out. I give him the usual hey man, it’s not your fault. You can’t see them all coming. Focus on all the lives you have saved and get back on the horse. I guess because of my gentle demeanor, Fennel thinks he can confide in me. You know what he says?

Derek was bad. He was going to be worse. I let that happen to him, he says.

The next day, Fennel is gone without explanation from command. We go back to getting shredded, worse than in the bad days, because we’ve grown complacent. That’s about when Pilgrim and I decided to take our leave.

Now, Mr. Detective, I can see the rusty gears in your rational mind turning. How could Fennel know where the bombs were? Seems impossible, don’t it? But he did know. He knew where every last one was and he let Derek die all the same. He was supposed to be one of us, but instead he decided to play God. That don’t sit well with me. It don’t sit well with Pilgrim. Paul Fennel needs to be held to account for what he did.

You’ll help us now, won’t you? You’ll help the good guys.

Jeff Hart lives in Brooklyn. His other writing can be found over at Culture Blues.

Photo by Fabio, from Flickr.