IraqbyEthanBooker

The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

Manhattan. Lower East Side. Gunshots snap Jack’s bloodshot eyes awake and the white stucco ceiling is spinning. He scratches his dry, itchy scalp, he should really pick up some quality moisturizing shampoo. Jack was Poe-in-a-ditch drunk last night, luckily he’s got a cross-country plane ride to sleep it off. He claps the lights on and stumbles shaky to his feet, blinking. The walls are whirling and his temples are throbbing the beat to the Beverly Hills Cop theme song. Toe-tappin’ but painful.

Jack zombie-lurches over to his Knight Rider alarm clock, an exact one-sixty-fourth replica of K.I.T., a quarter of a quarter of a quarter the size of Hasselhoff’s whip; he presses a button and a calm, slightly British-ish voice says, “Michael, the time is nine fifteen in the morning.” 9:15—Jiminy Cricket, his flight to sunny Southern California leaves in a half hour.

Jack stubs his toe hard on the empty bottle of rum on the floor and lets out a hearty “Motherfucker!”

Outside, shouts and shots—gangfight in the alleyway. He groggily staggers out the door and into the fiery fray, NYPD officers yelling at him to get down.

Jack turns to the closest, roundest one shaking his head, “It’s too early to dance Copper, I’m in a hurry.”

Bullets whiz by but he escapes the throng unscathed, standing at the bus stop as the shootout roars on behind him. A troublemaker upstairs yells Pig! out his window and the fighting intensifies.

At the airport Jack squints his way down the terminal until he finds his gate. He walks out the door labeled ‘This is not an Exit’ and the sun is so bright it hurts his ears. The tarmac is a haze except for the ground beneath his feet. He makes his way towards the jet as the door alarm squawks behind him.

Every face looks like the perp on Cops who didn’t sign the release form. Jack hands a tall blur his ticket and boards the plane, finding a seat between two men in green.

They eye him suspiciously before the guy with the window seat asks him, “You with the media? You Wolf Blitzen or somethin?”

Jack shakes his head ‘No’ and fades off to sleep as the guy on his other elbow mentions something about ‘bunker-busters.’

It seems like ages later when the plane touches down and Jack wakes up again feeling refreshed and renewed, after the window seat guy shrugs Jack off his shoulder. He stretches his legs and glances out at the famous sprawling sandy Californian mountains, the rolling L.A. sand dunes, and the orange hills of Hollywood. He frowns and looks out the other side. More sand. Jack stands up, sees all the men in uniform around him, and a cold sweat trickles down his back (or up his back, I wasn’t there). Before he can open his mouth, the plane is parked and unloaded. Jack is thoroughly embarrassed, he’s clearly gotten on the wrong plane, and he decides to play along—I mean obviously they’ve overshot LA by a few miles, this has to be some sort of desert army training ground. Nevada maybe?

Off the plane, the first thing that hits him is the suffocating heat. The second thing that hits him is a duffel bag to the back of the head. He gets back up, dusts himself off and gets out of the way as they unpack. He shifts his weight from left to right as his sneakers are starting to stick to the ground, they must wear some type of special non-melting space boot down here.

Jack taps a soldier on the shoulder and asks where the nearest bus stop is. The soldier turns away laughing with a twang, “You hear that, guys? City boy wants to know where the ding-danged bus stop is! Baa hahaha!”

The soldier draws a pistol and aims for Jack’s feet, “Let’s git this little city boy along! Git along city boy, git along!”

The soldier starts firing at Jack’s feet and he highsteps it out of there and around a corner, running smackdab into a scraggly old man bedecked in robes, yammering in some odd language, waving old fish in Jack’s face.

Jack shoves him away, enunciating, “¡No comprende!”

He realizes he’s most likely not in America as he previously suspected. Sonuvabitch Delta redirected the flight to Mexico.

Jack is strolling along the shore of a murky Mexican lagoon across the street from a decrepit Mexican bunker of some sort, when he hears a high-pitched Mexican titter behind him. He pivots quickly but no one’s there and his palms begin to sweat.

“Uh oh, spooky desert noises. I hope that isn’t one of those ‘camels’ I’ve been hearing so much about. Course I doubt a camel’s ever swam all the way to Mexico…”

He stares out at the still water when he hears another tiny laugh followed by shuffling sandals. He spins around quickly and catches a tall gaunt figure covered in sheets, peering around the corner.

“Holy shit!” Jack ejaculates (but not really).

The dark eyes bug and the thin man ducks back around the corner with a giggle and a rustling of footsteps.

Before Jack can properly react, the man is gone. Jack strolls back into the city where the fish-man attacked him and is leaning up against what the locals call The Black Mosque, shots bouncing off the walls behind, when he’s approached by a short man in full military gear.

“Hey there citizen.”

Jack doubletakes and just about plotzes, “Mr. President!”

George puts a finger over Jack’s lips and pushes him back up against the wall. “What are you doing here?!”

George glances into the mosque then again at Jack, “The American people want a leader, the American people want a hero. My ratings are hurting, I’m here to Rambo these magic carpet-riding bastards.”

Jack is confused by the magic carpet comment but he momentarily feels a newfound respect for his President, so willing to fight for his people.

“I figure I strap myself with enough village children and nobody’ll fire a shot. Here, help me duct tape this baby to my shin.”

Momentarily.

An old man trudges between the two toward the mosque doors with dark glasses shading his glare. He’s clearly missing the doorway by a couple yards, walking smack into the wall beside the door. He grunts but doesn’t move. \

Jack stares unbelievingly, “Who’s that?”

“Blind Sheik.”

George motions towards the building they’re standing before and checks his watch, “The Mullah is inside and I ordered an all-out strike, but I got thirty minutes so I’m gonna run in there and take em all out before they drop the bomb. That oughta get me on CNN!”

George turns back to Jack with a giddy childhood sparkle in his eye, handing Jack his watch, “Time me!”

George spins around and scrambles into the Black Mosque. Jack looks down at the watch, back up at the mosque and down at the watch again. He flips it over and looks into the dark mosque doorway in horror, hearing the ululations of shock and shouts of Yeehaw emanating from within, coming to a terrible realization.

The President had his watch on upside-down.

And to be honest, Jack thinks it’s a couple minutes behi-BOOM!

Jack gets rocked onto his back and looks up at a ball of orange flame where the Black Mosque once stood. Just then a gang of rough Muslim thugs turns the corner and the lead bandana-clad thug shouts, surprisingly in a thick Bronx accent, “Hey youse guys! That gibroni just blew up our mosque over der!”

The roughians hurtle down the street at Jack and he beats cheeks down an alleyway, hurtling himself through an open window into an empty gray room. He hears the roughians run past and is about to leave when a whistle and a long bony finger, as long as one of Jack’s shinbones if he had pulled it out at that very moment to compare after wiping off the excess blood and gristle with a sanitary napkin but not that type of sanitary napkin, motions him into the hallway and upstairs. On the top floor of this run-down apartment building, the door opens wide and Jack walks in to come face to face with the same sallow-cheeked figure from before.

Jack stands in the doorway, slack-jawed, “Usama! I found you!”

Bin Laden looks up from his bowl of Osama-O’s falafel-flavored cereal, milk running down his beard, “No no no it’s Osama.” He nods a head toward the cereal, “Says it on the box. Don’t you infidels get this over there?”

Jack opens the box, smells the content, and drops it back on the table, “No we don’t eat Mexican cereal up there.”

Osama walks over to the sink and cleans his bowl. Jack sits down on Bin Laden’s couch, staring at him, thinking, “How the hell did Osama get to Mexico?”

Hours later the two are watching Chappelle DVDs and Jack is beginning to get bored. Apparently living on the run, and hiding from authorities isn’t the wham-bam lifestyle Jack thought it was.

Osama turns to Jack, “You want some chips or something?”

Jack checks his watchless wrist, stands up, tightens his belt and sighs, “Well Usama…it’s been real.” And with that, Jack’s off and outside again, beginning to get fed up with Mexico/Iraq.

He sees some soldiers at the end of the road and remembers hearing about that fat reward a few years back. He begins to run toward the troops waving his arms, yelling, “Hey! I found him! I found Usama!”

But before he can sprint another step a hand grabs his ankle from a basement window and he’s pulled on his face down into a dark musty room. He gets up and wipes off his face to see Vice President Dick Cheney glaring down at him.

“You want me to lose my job?!” Cheney bristles with anger and walks away shaking his head.

Jack just sits there staring at the Vice President, “No I’m not really that into politics.” He surveys the small basement equipped with a cot, a satellite cellphone, a small television box, and a framed portrait of George W on the wall. On the box, a mustachioed fellow is reading the al-Jazeera news, but it’s dubbed in English, so it doesn’t just sound like bells and whistles.

“Muffti al-Jihad, Al Qaeda’s second in command was killed late last night in a vicious camel mauling. The camel is still at large, here is an artist’s rendering. This is the third camel mauling in the past month, could this be The Summer of the Camel? Is the Camel Apocalypse finally upon us? We’ll be right back after this message from Osama-O’s, The Cereal and Holy Leader to Die For…”

Dick shuts off the box and gruffly shoves Jack out of the way. Jack snaps his fingers, “I knew there were camels in Mexico!”

Dick picks up a hot cheese sandwich off the radiator, lunging into it amorously, ignoring all words, all sounds, all emotions; just a man and his sandwich in a loving embrace…the passion, oh the passion.

That’s when Jack notices John McCain hunched over, swinging in a cage in the corner, growling ravenously, “They got me again! Those goddamn Vietcong! Damn you Cong!!”

“Shut up John,” Cheney turns back to Jack. “It’s a therapy exercise he goes through once a year, helps him cope with the whole POW thing.”

Jack scans the room one more time grinning, “So I finally found the Vice President’s Undisclosed Location.”

Dick shoves by Jack once more (he’s beginning to think it’s intentional) and tries feeding some of the sandwich to the McCain.

McCain curls up in a ball, “No! No food! You tainted it with a mystic Asian curse!”

Cheney turns back to a smug Jack and rolls his eyes, “Yeah, wow, you found me. Everybody knows about this damn basement, don’t you see McCain over there? This is the most disclosed undisclosed location I’ve ever used. Bushie was just here and Condi’s supposed to be coming tomorrow. Osama keeps trying to steal it, that wily old coot.”

Jack looks away distractedly, “Yeah he’s a hoot, look you Dick this is really depressing so I’m gonna get going.”

Cheney blocks the stairs with a cheese sandwich in one hand and Jack’s arm in the other, “Did you say ‘you dick’?”

Jack breaks his arm free, “No I said Dick.”

Dick looks at the McCain and then at Jack again, “Sounded like ‘you dick.’”

“No, it was just Dick, dick.”

Cheney stops him again, “Did you say Dick or dick?”

“OK, now we’re just splitting hairs, I’m out. Oh and the President may be dead.”

Jack comes up out of the Undisclosed Location and back across the street to the rubble of the Black Mosque. Women are wailing, waving handkerchiefs in the air like excited Steelers fans on a chilly Pittsburgh afternoon. He wanders through the destruction, picking up pieces here and there, searching for any sign of life. Just then he hears a familiar Southern-fried chuckle from directly below his feet, and he drops to his knees scratching at the floor until he finds the edges of a trapdoor. He opens it and plummets down a steep staircase into a lavishly carpeted church basement. Across the room sitting on large chairs resembling thrones are Mullah Omar and President Bush laughing and carrying on, large flagons of ale in hand.

Jack walks up to George, who’s now sporting a smart turban of his own, and gives him a “What-the-fuck?” look.

George grins, grabbing Jack and pulling him closer, “We’re not dead!”

Jack pulls out of his grip, “Clearly George, but what are you and this Mexican doing down here?”

George takes Jack’s hands in his and takes a deep breath before breaking the news, “I’m a Muslim now.”

Jack backs away and glances at the Mullah who grins and raises his mug at the lost American.

“George you were down here for thirty minutes, you switched faiths in thirty minutes? I didn’t even know there were any Muslims down here, course I didn’t know there were any camels either…”

George stands up and heads for the stairs, “Absolutely. And now the Mullah and I must be off, we are about to sign a peace accord. The long battle between Christians and Muslims shall be nevermore!”

With this rousing conclusion George begins ascending the stairs back to ground level.

Jack turns to the Mullah, “That blast must have knocked some sense into the guy. What’s your name again? Molly?”

The Mullah grins, winks, and grunts in a thick cockney accent, “Oy!”

George swivels quickly on the stairs, loses his footing, and falls head over heels back down to the floor, rubbing his head as he gets up, “Owie.”

Jack dusts him off, “You OK Mr. President?”

George blinks confusedly, stares at Jack and points a finger at Mullah, “I hurt my head-thing. Who dat?”

Jack distractedly waves a hand at the Mullah, “That’s just some mariachi performer, you still gonna sign that peace treaty buddy?”

George is still staring at Jack, mouth collecting flies, “I wanna steak.”

Jack turns back to the Mullah, “Sorry Molly, guess the peace deal is off, President’s Christian again.”

The Mullah cackles, throws back his head and rips his face off. George and Jack are both shocked as Tony Blair’s toothy grin shines back at them, “I tricked you, you ninny! You bloody lunked it, you codger! I wonkled a dodger in your dippety-doo, govna! God save the queen!”

And with a kick of his heels, Tony Blair is off and up the stairs, outside and skipping off into the Arabian sun.

George and Jack stand there, unsure as to what just happened.

George nudges Jack with his elbow and whispers out the corner of his mouth, “Who was she? Was that a leprechaun?”

Jack smiles and nods, “Yes sir. Let’s go home.”

They climb up into the sweltering Iraqi sun and squint down the street at an oxcart coming nearer, a lone man riding the carriage nods to them. Because of his thick hair and disheveled appearance, neither man recognizes him as former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Jack takes the reins and Ashcroft tunes up a weatherbeaten acoustic guitar, to serenade the boys on their oxcart ride back home.

With the sun setting in the distance, and a pack of deadly camels lurking nearby, George and Jack sway with Ashcroft’s melodious voice as he croons to them, “Let the eeeeeeeeagle soarrrrrrr/Like she’s never soarrrrrred beforrrrrrrre…”