Grunt Life Read Free

imagine myself hunched over and filling my face. We used to talk for hours about food in Afghanistan. Beside movies, sex and cars, it was our favorite topic of conversation. And here, in front of me, was everything me and my friends had ever wanted and then some.
    “So what’ll it be?” he asked.
    I stepped forward and grabbed an empty plate. I could treat this as a buffet and have a little of all worlds, but somehow I felt I needed to be more specific. If this was my last meal, what would it be? Looking at the table, I realized it was no choice at all.
    I grabbed a half-pounder cheeseburger and I added mayo, lettuce, onions, bacon, and ketchup. I filled the other half of the plate with fries, adding a nice pool of ketchup to dip into. Then I took my plate to an empty table and sat down.
    “Want something to drink? Beer? Wine?”
    I did want a beer. But this wasn’t about wanting. This was about remembering. So I said, “Milkshake, please,” wondering if I might have just asked for the one thing they didn’t have.
    “Vanilla or chocolate?”
    “Vanilla.”
    I placed a napkin in my lap and watched as one of the men went to a cooler and pulled out a vanilla shake. When he brought it over, I sipped it, a cold velvet dream of winter. Then I ate, and as I did, I thought about Trujillo, who lived in Gilroy, California and who always talked about cheeseburgers, fries and shakes at the local drive-in. I thought about how he’d smiled wistfully when he’d talked about the way he’d bite into the burger and the juices would mix with the ketchup. I thought of the detail he’d go into when he talked about his favorite food. And I thought about the roadside bomb that ate him from the inside out the week after I left Iraq.
     
     
    W E PULLED TO the curb at LAX’s Terminal Three, and the two thugs stayed with the vehicle while Mr. Pink escorted me inside. We bypassed all the counters and went straight to security. Instead of getting checked like all the other customers, Mr. Pink knocked on a windowless door beside the security setup. When it opened, he flashed a badge. The heavyset black woman took one look at it, backed up, and decided she didn’t want any part of it. She motioned us through, then locked the door behind us. We walked down a warren of halls, passing ground crew, TSA agents coming back from break, and stewardesses, eventually coming out by a gate that was already boarding. The sign read Flight 1445 to Cheyenne. Looks like I was going to Wyoming.
    As he slid me into an aisle seat in first class, he said, “You’ll be met at the other end. Enjoy the flight.”
    I thought about saying something to him. Thank you didn’t seem appropriate, but I felt I had to say something. The problem was I wasn’t sufficiently in charge of my thoughts to even begin to know what. He made it simple, though, and left before I had to try.
    They closed the door to the aircraft and a flight attendant handed me a fluted glass.
    “Don’t want to leave you out, soldier,” she said with a twinkle and a smile. I could get used to looking at her.
    I took a sip and realized there was alcohol in the drink. I took another sip and stared at it.
    “It’s called a Mimosa,” said the woman sitting next to me.
    I glanced at her. She looked to be about fifty, wore a flowered suit and pants, and had more diamonds on her hands than a store in the mall.
    “Mimosa, huh?”
    She nodded.
    I leaned back and took another sip. I liked that word— mimosa .
    The flight attendant took my glass when I was finished and the plane prepared for takeoff. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, thinking about Mr. Pink and what he’d said to make me decide to give his Task Force OMBRA a chance.
     
     
    “G IVE ME YOUR best pitch,” I said, finishing the lunch, the taste of meat and cheese dissolving with the memory of the roadside bombs exploding.
    Mr. Pink smiled like an uncle who had something he wanted to tell you about the family. He’d been