Phoenix Island (3 page)

To his right stood the small kid with the big nose. Despite the chaos,
he grinned at Carl and leaned in, talking out of the side of his mouth. “Some welcome wagon, huh?”

Carl nodded but didn’t smile. Smiling at a time like this would be about as acceptable as singing karaoke in math class.

Soldiers yelled, telling them to straighten the lines and move apart. “Drop your bags. Lift your arms straight out to the side like this.”

A huge soldier in front of them demonstrated, lifting his arms until he looked like the world’s most muscular diver about to do a triple pike in combat boots.

“Square it away, brig rats! Dress-right-dress!”

Everyone shifted, the soldiers telling them to hurry. A red-haired kid in front of Carl was crying.

One of the soldiers yelled, “Unzip your bags and dump the contents on the ground!”

Carl turned his bag upside down, dumping clothes, his shaving kit, and two pictures of his family. His only other possession hit the pavement with a loud clank and lay shining on the black pavement like a miniature sun. He had won the gold medal when he was eleven years old for being the best 90-pound boxer in the country. All of the dozens and dozens of trophies were gone, of course, but at least he’d managed to hold on to this medal over the years.

He stared at it for a second, gathering strength. He could do this. These soldiers, they just wanted to rattle his cage. They were like a fighter who came out swinging at the first bell, trying to take your head off, trying to throw you off your game. You just couldn’t let them get to you.

Then a hand closed over Carl’s medal and lifted it from the ground.

Looking up, he saw that this soldier was shorter than the others and even more muscular, a thumb of a man in a drill sergeant’s hat. He scowled at Carl.

Carl looked back with a blank expression. He wasn’t going to try to stare the guy down, but he wasn’t going to punk out, either.

“Don’t you eyeball me, boy. Eyes straight ahead.” The guy held up the medal, snorted, and tucked it into his pocket.

“What are you doing with my medal?” Carl asked.

The soldier glared at him, kept glaring, then gave him a tilted grin, no humor in it at all. “Don’t worry about it, sunshine. Put your hands on your head and spread your feet.”

Carl followed the command, but anger lit inside him, and his knuckles started to ache. Where did this guy get off, taking his things?

The stout man picked up Carl’s empty bag, shook it, and let it drop. “Got anything else I should know about? Drugs? Weapons? Money, phone? Anything?”

“No.”

“That’s ‘No, Drill Sergeant.’ ”

“No, Drill Sergeant,” Carl said, the words bitter in his mouth.

The drill sergeant patted Carl down, head to toe, then crouched to root through his things, shaking out the clothes as if on the hunt for something before tossing them to one side. Carl focused on the skull-and-crossbones tattoo emblazoned on the muscular bronze arm. The soldier used his left arm, Carl noted—a southpaw. A tattooed banner overtop the skull read
Death Before Dishonor
.

Yeah, right,
Carl thought, wanting his championship gold back. Now.

“Keep these.” The sergeant handed Carl the photographs: one of his mother in a red Phillies cap, the upper deck of good old Veterans Stadium visible behind her; the other of the whole family, Dad in his police uniform, Mom smiling at the camera, Carl, maybe five or six, holding their hands tight.

The drill sergeant went through the shaving kit and dropped it at Carl’s feet. “Put all this back in the bag. Let’s go. Hurry up.”

Carl didn’t budge.

The drill sergeant, who’d begun drifting down the line toward somebody else, snapped around to stare at Carl. “I told you to move.”

“What about my medal . . . Drill Sergeant?”

The man snarled, eyes flashing. He rushed to Carl, shoved into him with his big chest, and leaned in so close the brim of his hat bumped Carl’s nose.

Carl stared straight ahead, smelling sweat and feeling heat coming off the big muscles.

“You sassing me, kid?”

“He didn’t mean anything by it, Drill Sergeant,” the small kid next to Carl said.

“You took my medal,” Carl said. He knew this was a mistake, but he couldn’t help it; that award was the sole symbol of the only success he’d ever known.

“Your what?” The guy bumped Carl with his hat again.

Carl stared straight ahead. “My medal.”

The sergeant roared with laughter.

For a second, Carl felt relief—it was all a joke—but then he noted the emptiness in the laughter and knew he’d crossed some stupid line and was about to pay.

“Drill sergeants!” the sergeant yelled. “I think I found an individual!”

In all directions, voices clamored.

“An individual?”

“Where?”

“An individual? Not on Phoenix Island!”

Then they were on him, yelling in his face, in his ears, at the back of his head.

“An individual!”

“He looks like an individual!”

“Showboat!”

“Hollywood!”

Carl gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead.

They pushed him out of the ranks to a patch of bare pavement.

“Front!” Skull-and-Crossbones yelled.

Hands pushed Carl to the hot ground. It was like pressing both his palms onto a pancake griddle. He didn’t show it.

“When he says ‘front,’ ” someone yelled, “you get into push-up position and start pushing, Hollywood.”

It felt like his hands were melting into the asphalt, but Carl forced the pain out of his mind and fell into his rhythm. Up-down-up-down-up . . .

To his left, someone laughed.

Drill sergeants leapt.

“What’s so funny, kid?”

“You think we’re funny?”

“Get over there and join him, Stretch!”

“It wasn’t me, Drill Sergeant.” They pushed a tall, skinny kid onto the pavement. Carl had noticed him on the plane, the guy all smiles as he flashed signs back and forth with the other gangbangers.

“What is your name, brig rat?”

“Davis, Drill Sergeant.”

“Davis, you have approximately two seconds to shut your mouth and start pushing, or you are going to rapidly develop the most debilitating migraine you have
ever
encountered. Front!”

They pushed Davis onto the ground directly in front of Carl. He yelped and rocked back. “The asphalt burned my hands!”

Carl stuck to his rhythm—up-down-up-down—and watched an arm force Davis to the pavement again. Finally, as Davis began to do pushups, his eyes burned into Carl’s, one of them dripping tattooed tears. The ink told Carl that Davis had murdered two people, one for each teardrop; the eyes told him that in Davis’s gangbanger view of the world, all of this—the shouting, the push-ups, maybe even the burning macadam—was somehow Carl’s fault.

“Two individuals,” a voice bellowed. “What do we do about that?”

“How about . . . ? Back!”

Hands lifted Carl out of his push-up position and spilled him onto his back. A face leaned in, screaming. “When he says ‘back,’ you do sit-ups!”

Carl started, ignoring the burn of the pavement, which was so hot he thought his jumpsuit might burst into flames. Sit-ups, though? A boxer could rack out sit-ups all day long. Carl did a thousand a day, just out of habit.

“Go!”

They yanked Carl to his feet. Someone yelled, “When he says ‘go,’ you jog in place!” The voice was so close, so loud, it seemed like the guy was inside Carl’s ear . . . with a bullhorn.

Carl pumped his legs up and down. Again, running was a breeze. You didn’t need special equipment or a team or a gym membership to run, so it was one of the things Carl had been able to do in almost every place he’d been sent.

“I didn’t do anything, man,” Davis said, barely lifting his feet.

One of the sergeants reached up and cuffed Davis in the back of the head. “Lock it up, goldbrick! You just added another minute.”

“How long we got to do this?” Davis asked.

Another cuff. “Two minutes longer than you did before you asked that question.”

One of the drill sergeants pointed at Davis’s long legs, laughing. “Man, I had legs like that, I’d sue ’em for lack of support!”

“Front!”

Carl dropped and started pushing.

And so it went, on and on: front-back-go . . . front-back-go . . . front-back-go . . . the pavement hot as fire, the sun boiling overhead, the sergeants laughing and yelling and telling them if there was one thing they couldn’t stand, it was an individual. Every time they faced each other, Davis drilled his eyes through Carl’s.

So stupid,
Carl thought. All of it—the drill sergeants, his own mistake, the punishment, Davis’s anger, everything. So, so stupid.

Front . . . back . . . go . . .

Carl pumped his knees up and down. He was exhausted from the long trip. He’d barely slept for days, and fatigue, combined with hunger and the heat, stirred his mind like a kettle of bubbling soup, out of which, like steam, rose images: Brad Templeton, Eli screaming, the judge, the sign reading
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, the assorted roadkill along the endless highway they’d driven prior to boarding the strange plane in the Mexican desert . . .

“Front!”

Carl sprawled into a push-up and started pumping away. His arms shook with effort.
So be it,
Carl thought.
They’re not going to break me.
He gritted his teeth and kept pushing.

Davis’s head hung low between his shoulders, and he was stuck, mid-push-up, his arms quivering. All at once, he dropped onto his stomach.

Shouting filled the air.

“Nobody told you to stop!”

“Motivation!”

“Keep pushing, individual!”

“Let’s go, funny man! I don’t hear you laughing now!”

Davis lay on his stomach. “I can’t do no more.”

“Get pushing now! That’s an order!”

“I can’t, Drill Sergeant,” Davis said.

“Get up,” Carl said. “You can do it.”

“Shut up,” someone told him, and pain exploded in Carl’s ribs. He grunted but kept pushing.

One of them had kicked him—it surprised him. Shouting and pushups were one thing . . . kicking, though? That was against the law.

Or at least it had been in the United States.

This was Phoenix Island.

Davis struggled through one more push-up before collapsing again.

Drill sergeants surrounded him, yelling. “Are you disobeying a direct order?” one of them said above the others.

“I can’t do another—”

A combat boot thudded into Davis’s ribs. He cried out and rolled into a ball. Carl saw the kicker’s thick forearm, the skull and crossbones there, the words
Death Before Dishonor
suspended over Davis like a bad joke inked into bronze flesh.

Carl stopped pushing. “Leave him alone.”

A hand grabbed him by the hair and lifted, then slammed him back down into the pavement. The air rushed out of his lungs, and pain spread through him.

“Back!” Someone told him. “You get sassy again, we’ll take it out on your buddy.”

Carl swallowed the pain and started doing sit-ups.
Buddy? Davis wants to turn me into his third teardrop.

“You’re not in Fort Living Room anymore, kid!” one of the sergeants yelled at Davis. “This is the real deal!”

“I gave you an order!” Skull-and-Crossbones said. “You have exactly three seconds to start pushing, or I’m citing you for insubordination!”

Davis lay curled on the ground.

“One!”

Get up,
Carl thought.

“Two!”

C’mon, man.

“Three!”

Skull-and-Crossbones kicked him again. Davis cried out and tried to crawl away, but they hauled him to his feet, shouting that he’d disobeyed direct orders. Davis was loose in their grip, like a fighter standing up after getting knocked out for the full ten-count.

“If he’s not going to follow orders,” a woman’s voice, cold and smooth and oddly lyrical, said, “take him to the sweatbox.”

“Yes, First Sergeant!” the drill sergeants yelled as one. One tossed Davis over his shoulder and jogged off through the heat blur.

The shouting stopped. Hands yanked Carl to his feet. “Show the first sergeant respect! Attention!”

Carl had seen enough war movies to know what that meant. He stood straight with his arms at his sides and then executed what he thought of as a salute.

A compact woman with very dark skin regarded him coolly. Raised lines of scar tissue, stacked as neatly as ranked soldiers, laddered her cheeks. Speaking with an African lilt, she said, “Do not salute me, young man. I work for a living. Rejoin the ranks.”

“Yes, First Sergeant,” Carl said, and, lowering his hand, jogged back toward the kids. As he neared the group, he saw a jeep pull away from a low block building, two long legs dangling out of the back. Davis was off to the sweatbox, then, whatever that was. Carl hoped never to find out.

As he reentered the ranks, someone tripped him, and he nearly fell. “Way to go, Hollywood.” Others hissed curses. Without even looking, Carl knew it was Davis’s friends.

Great. This was going just great.

Then Carl saw the pretty girl in the back rank, staring at him, her gray eyes wide. He’d noticed her on the bus in Texas, then again boarding the plane, but they’d separated the boys and the girls, and only now did he really get to look at her. She looked frightened and stunned and exhausted, yet still beautiful, with sad-looking eyes the color of wet gravel and long hair as dark as his mother’s had been,
though a patch of pure white marked her bangs. White hair. And her, what? Sixteen?

Then he was back in his spot beside the small kid, facing away from her. Had he seen concern on her face? He wished he’d smiled. Then the absurdity of that hit him, and he could have laughed at himself. Smile at her? This wasn’t exactly a make-out party. Still, she was very pretty. Those eyes, that hair.

His bag was gone. Everyone’s bag was gone. The lines they stood in were straighter now.
Guess they had time to tidy things up while I was dying over there
. There was a gap where the red-haired kid had been. Carl glanced to the side and saw a lump under the trees. Must’ve fainted.