Through the white bars I have a view of the hallway. If I angle my head just so, with my head pressed on the glass, I can see into the end bedroom, a junk room that Sonny uses for storage or for hiding his illegal locobis.
I don’t call out any more, nor ask when I’ll be let out. I don’t argue when he forgets to feed me, or let me out to do my business. I’ve learned to make do, like I have my whole life, all seventy-eight years of it. I just tell myself it’s like living in the Depression again. I ration my meals, and hoard saltines and sardines under the bed where no one will look.
Happy was happy only if always in misery. That wasn’t the way that he had planned his life; he had enjoyed pleasure, once, before that afternoon in the cottage with Mildred. Before that afternoon in the cottage in Lowestoft, when Mildred had coyly said to him: “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours."
There’s always a sense of oppression that overwhelms me when I cross the frontier. It’s like putting on a stiff, uncomfortable coat, stepping across that line. When I fly in it’s quite different. There is no line in the sky. There is no border post on this side or that; the one filled with bored bemused young men who think you must be a fool, or wicked, for wanting to go there in the first place; the other populated by frightened soldiers who react to every verbal pleasantry as if it were a trap laid to catch them by some agent of the state.
We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose and we called it ‘Operation Scooby’. I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot.
First time was instinct. I hear O’Leary go, ‘Jesus,’ and there’s a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he’d lap up water from a bowl. It wasn’t American blood, but still, there’s that dog, lapping it up. And that’s the last straw, I guess, and then it’s open season on dogs.
--
Redeployment by Phil Klay was read by Steve Wedd at the Liars’ League Shock & Awe event on Tuesday 13th September 2011, at the Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London.
Phil Klay is a veteran of the US Marine Corps and served in Iraq. His essay Death and Memory was featured in the New York Times. This is his first published piece, and the full text of the story appears in Granta 116: Ten Years Later – visit www.granta.com to read more or buy the issue.
Farook was afraid. He had doubts that any man could speak for God. He had prayed for guidance and Allah had filled his mind with questions instead of answers. He was afraid of doing something horribly wrong.
He was not afraid to die. There was no one left who depended on him. No wife or child or parent, not even a goat with young of its own. No one who would miss him. No one who would grieve. All gone.
Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)
KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL
Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).
OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!
They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here
