•  
  •  
 

Authors

Blake Kimzey

Abstract

Foot patrols through Baghdad were slow. Nothing but time to think about sniper sightlines and IEDs hidden in the trash. We gridded the streets in our AO and sidestepped sewage-puddling ditches. Three months in, one block became our favorite. There were fewer adobe-like farmhouses, and beyond them lay the rural red-sanded expanse of the desert. The stagnant heat reminded me of running the firebreak roads at Camp Mackall during SFAS Team Week. I had twelve months to go, a full year to imagine a violent death on a repeating loop. I wanted to make it to my twenty-first birthday so I could walk into a liquor store back home in Fort Worth and buy my old man a nice bottle of Scotch, thank him for loving me, for sending me letters every week.

Cover Page Footnote

"Steve Harvey & Carlos II" was originally published at Booth.

Share

COinS