Jogging along Penn Station's mucky floor with the herd, I ran though the day's schedule in my head: meeting first thing, two meetings later in the morning, and a conference call at two. My train was twenty minutes late and I forgot to iron my shirt. A good start.
I darted through the open space near the tall escalator and staircase, heading toward 7th Avenue, and glanced up quickly enough to notice a National Guardsman holding an American flag, motionless and reverent. Nine more guardsmen stood single-file behind him. Beside the row of guardsmen, stood a row of ten New York City police officers. Behind them, four bagpipers and two drummers. They were all dressed for presentation, pressed uniforms, kilts, and shoes shiny as mirrors. The group stood in formation off to the side, allowing everyone to bull through.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The base drum easily filled the cavernous building. The rat-tat-tat of the snare joined and the bagpipes came in low.
I stopped. In my hurry to catch a late train and make my meeting, I had forgotten.
The procession worked its way to the center of the open area, at the bottom of the stairs, and the bagpipes started their Amazing Grace.
Others stopped. We bowed our heads and remembered the first plane.
The day before, I had been talking to my uncle about getting embedded with an Army unit in Iraq; I wanted to fulfill my sense of duty and thought my writing was the answer - a prose-shooting patriot.
Hemingway said that war was a great subject for a writer to experience and write about. Writers who didn't get the chance were jealous. My cousin, an EOD specialist with the Navy, was heading to Iraq in a few weeks. I wanted to go. I wanted to see war.
The bagpipes went silent and I made my way to the office. My day went on and though my fingers typed, my mind was stuck on war. How can I see it… feel it?
“Fly to Baghdad,” said Jason, a colleague and confidant. “Wait until your cousin gets there and buy a ticket.”
“That's crazy,” I said and walked away. Crazy and brilliant.
Six weeks later, I sat in a sauna of a cab and pulled out my wallet, proud of my determination. “How much for the seven miles to Baghdad?” I asked cabby.
“Four thousand US dollars,” he replied.
“That's crazy."
“This is the most dangerous road in the world and you want to drive down it. You crazy,” he said.
“But it's not that far.
“About four thousand dollars away,” said cabby.
The air-conditioned cab was no match for the sweltering heat outside. I was told to be prepared, be ready for a wall of heat. Choking heat. My forehead poured like a hydrant and my deodorant quit before I got off the plane. This wasn't heat. It was hell. Freaking Jason and his grand ideas.
I tilted on the cracked, pleather cab seat, peeling my left leg up like a security cap on a new jar of peanut butter.
“So, crazy, do you have four grand?” asked cabby.
I didn't have it. Even if I did, I wouldn't have given it to him. What was I thinking?
Kaboom!
The cab jolted and the ground shook. Leaning forward, I peered through the windshield toward Baghdad and saw a plume of dark, gray smoke. “I think I've seen enough,” I said. I handed him a twenty and stepped out of the cab and into the blanket of heat, immediately covered in sweat and humiliation. Four thousand dollars to Baghdad and I gave twenty.
On board the plane, I successfully fled the carnage, while on the ground my cousin drove straight into it. I pulled out my calendar and counted down the days to his return, to the day I'd tell him how far away I was.
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To James and his EOD buddies.
I've never used this much flashback in my writing. Let me know how it feels.
Matt,
I think you have much to work with here. But I don't think this works, yet, the way you want it to. I would suggest reworking, to bring what is now the flashback to the fore, perhaps start with that (there is a typo in the 8th para of the flashback "and the my cousin"). I would suggest eliminating the the 10th para in the flashback that starts with "Monotony..." I found that pulled me out of the story. Then perhaps rework the present day parts, so that there is a bit of a bigger payoff than the money for the cab ride.
Thank you very much for the critique. I'll rework this today and tonight, at some point.
Thing about typos is they bite you when you're not looking. There's a double 'the' in Cherise's comments (I'm sure she noticed when it was too late).
I thought this wasn't bad, actually. Maybe that 10th par could be thought about. But you should go with your instincts, mainly. You being the author, after all.
Can I make a point about this flag thing? Here in Australia, we're slowly starting to go in that direction. Flagpoles in front yards, that sort of thing. Seem familiar to y'all? Would it be too provocative to suggest that looking at the world from behind a flagpole is a very egocentric way of looking at the world? I mean, the world is a lot wider than any of its small corners, and it's pretty much a chance thing we're born in the corner we're born in, in the first place.
Mind you, I've heard there're some folk who prefer a nice tree to a flagpole in their front yard.
There's also flagpoles made of wood to consider, but I'll not go there.
Thanks for the advice. See, for me, this was really my throw-up draft. It hit me; I wrote; I posted. Because it felt like such a change for me, I wanted to see what everyone thought before I did my edits. Not sure if the site frowns upon that and only wants finished works, but it was instinct.
I liked this very much. I love the flashbacks.
Thanks. I actually rewrote it in chronological order today during my lunch break lunch. I wish I could post both.
Changed this up from the original draft.
Problem is I can't remember the original draft. Seems ok though. That must be a US idiom is it? - not having a 'the' before 'cabby'. Looks weird this side of the Pacific.
I thought this version worked very nicely. The phrase "prose-shooting patriot" was very funny. And the image of some crazy writer thinking embedding himself is the way to go, ala Hemingway, and going all the way to Baghdad then turning away, from the cost, from the danger, and heading back home, is really good.
As Eamon pointed out in his comments that typos can bite you (and pointed out that my own comment about typos indeed had typos in it! - judger be judged!) yet, here the typo has nothing to do with what side of the ocean. Cabby should have a "the" before it.
Nice revisions, Matt.
Thanks Cherise. I actually knowingly left out "the" before cabby. And I knowingly left it lower-case. I felt that calling him cabby was more personal, yet not his name, so I kept it that way. I mulled that over quite a bit.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
I still like this. Especially heading back home. And of course "Hemmingway".
Thanks!
Really good. Like the dialogue with the cab driver.
I like that the narrator conveniently fails to realize that one good way to see war and be a patriot is to join the military. :)
I also like the immediate turn-around at the first explosion. It's honest.
And someone waiting for someone they care about to survive a war is experiencing war, too - war has many facets. It's not just about guns and mortar fire.
This is indeed a story about war and a testament of this time in history, though it is fiction. I give it a "fav."
It seems like some kinks have gotten worked out. I like how it is almost a strictly linear chronology.
Because it is such great material it seems like a good one to hold onto and keep working on for a while as you have more thoughts about it.
That honest voice you've got is a gem and it serves you well especially here. -- Q
I really liked this. Liked the way you started and ended.
There is so much to this piece.
Your imagery in this piece is immaculate; you restrained verbosity to the point where its behaves like a well-trained guide dog and only enhanced the scene. The flashback was so well contrived that I barely noticed the shift, and yet it worked. I liked how you merely spoke on your experience and left no political jabs to roam free and mar up the prose. Well done.
Ran out of room: The cabbie's response "It's four thousand dollars away" was golden and presented with frank credulity.
Meredith, thank you very much for the great response.