A Car Crash of Sorts

As he was lying there that night, he kept trying to wipe his face, to get the mustard off, but he couldn't. All he could think was how stupid he looked with all this mustard all over his god-damned face. Dante Kronos tried to yell for help, but he couldn't do that, either.

*

"Dinner meal, Kronos!"

*

"...and have a good weekend, gentlemen," First Sergeant Cancomb said to the C.O.B. formation. "If I see a D.U.I. report on my desk Monday morning, the whole battery's spending a month in Pineland on half an M.R.E. a day, got it? Fall out, you stankin'-ass dicks!"

For Specialist Dante Eagleton Kronos, formation release felt like a dragged-down, white-hot wipe-out of everything beyond the next six hours and the ensuing sleep that would last as long as it wanted to. After a week of sleeping in the mud, of muscle-ache and asses-and-elbows hustle, of stink and camo and ordnance explosions, time had ceased to exist beyond the night ahead. Kronos felt the swell of joyful anticipation invade his whole body. He smiled.

"Ready to do this?" Pv2 Joshua Linkbuck said to Dante, as he approached.

"You know it, bro," Dante said, holding out his fist.

Linkbuck bumped it.

Kronos rounded up the rest of the group—PFC Nathaniel Podink, and Specialist Daryl Dint—and they strutted, Reservoir Dogs-like, into the World War II-era barracks as if they were the new Algonquin Roundtable.

Tired as he was, Dante's joyful anticipation of the night ahead carried his jungle-booted strides as if he were tramping on a whispy cloud on his way to Valhalla.

The guys settled into their customary seats in Dante's room, with their customary drinks in hand (beers all around except for Dante's scotch and soda) and got right down to business. Reading and drinking business. Rain started to pelt the windows of the barracks room.

Kronos felt as if all his soldierly cares—regulations, inspections, physical fitness routines, combat training exercises, high alert status—dissipated as he read and drank, drank and read.

Ray stuck his head in Dante's doorway. "Reading Maniacs!" he said. "Stop reading immediately! Y'all're spookin' my girls with your nonsense!"

The Reading Maniacs barely looked up from their books.

Dante had started the "Reading Maniacs Reading Group (for Readers)" in Basic Training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He showed up to fight the terrorists with a copy of MacBeth in one hand and Duino Elegies in the other, which initially resulted only in having to do many, many push-ups. And sit-ups. And Harleys. But eventually, eventually, he was able to isolate enough guys within the battery to be able to form a solid group who enjoyed using their downtime to read, as a group. As a statement. As a SOCIETY. It was ingenious, really. They would just sit around and read. That's it. An occasional beer slurp, or, "Can you pass me that dictionary?", but that was IT.

"How'm'I supposta get rich with you guys spookin' my girls?" Ray said. He smiled a chaw-stained, gap-toothed grin.

Dante felt a burning anger welling up. He figured Ray's "girls" were so damn high on coke and mini-thins by now they'd be intrepid. "C'mon, man," he said to Ray. "We're not spookin' anybody. 'Cept you, maybe."

"Dudes," Nate said to the other members of the Reading Maniacs. "Whatchou guys think? Maybe Ray's got some fresh?"

Dante felt the sudden and jarring impact of the deadly threat of Nate's words straight through to his bones, it seemed. "Oh, screw that crap, man," Dante said. "The Reading Maniacs do not need to partake in that contaminated flesh." He took some hot dogs and buns out of his mini-fridge and plopped them into the slots of his pop-up hot dog toaster. "You really want that trash? You guys want some dogs?"