A Gathering of Vultures (excerpt)
The GCS filled with bodies. Colonel Puffer. Captains Akintoye and Hussein. A general I didn’t recognize. A female colonel, a briefcase, all business. The general’s aide I supposed. Someone from JAG, lawyers. Lots of lawyers. This was going to be legal, all the way. A couple of guys in golf shirts and khakis, Oakley sunglasses on backs of heads, who said nothing. Everybody wanted to be there when it happened. Rubberneckers. Looky-loos. The morbidly curious.
What was it like watching a family die? Stick around.
Stale coffee. Deodorant. Smoked cigarettes. The GCS smelled of anticipation, as if waiting for Neil Armstrong to bounce onto the moon, his One small step speech. The world’s biggest gang bang, maybe. Take your pick.
Golf voices again on radio. Handsets cued acknowledgement. Electronic chirps and tweets, like songbirds, or maybe vultures, calling across the ether. Kmetz’ dry erase marker squeaked across white board, a ‘to do’ list of tragedy. A throat cleared.
Radio traffic became its own performance, a little known sub-genre of the oral storytelling tradition. And though separated by oceans, entire continents, billions of people, we’re close, American technology! as around a campfire. We smelled the smoke. Felt the flames. The heat. No money was spared. And whatever story was told – democracy, freedom, revenge – the hero was always the same. The villain, though sharing similarities with villains past, is dictated by our nightmares. A changeling. And though heresy to admit, he’s beloved, for without him (and it’s always a him) there is no story; no hero without a villain. Just Cause, the lawyers might title it, a ritual poetry almost Protestant in its restraint, yet with an almost Catholic twist, absolution before the sin; confession in reverse. And though always dispassionate, I heard great passion in our words, blood between the lines. As the old man always said, it’s the ones who spoke quietly, or not at all, that were the most dangerous.
As if drawn to the warmth of her pregnant belly, that sun radiating brilliant life, the girl ran into her mother’s arms, tiny head reared in laughter, goats nibbling at their feet. Not for the first time I felt the shame of the voyeur. The violation in witnessing uninvited, such intimacy. The shame of the human body, its vulnerability. The armed men appeared again, shooing mother and daughter from their home.
Intruders. All of us.
Voices notched an octave, as if afraid of being left behind, missing out somehow, chatter hitting in two and three word bursts, excited yet always disciplined, a testament to their training and culture. These were the descendants of the island that invented time itself, a way to coordinate ships, control an empire. And we were clever students, the prudent and deserving keepers of that legacy, the American taxpayer always getting his money’s worth. I listened as hidden storytellers, the JTAC, the SEAL team commander, and the ‘three letter agencies’ who’d whisper in our ears, confirming this or directing that, discussed how the story ends, the many variations, yet always with the target returning to dust.
As I listened, the screen erupted in light, sky smudged black in smoke, different from that of the campfire, tinged now with hazard, the chemical and catalytic agents tasting of science, making eyes tear and breathing impossible. The smell of Death.
The ancient cloud hung in the air, cedars splintered, trunks black in flame. The living ran to help, do what they could, if only to cry out, powerless before such power. And as I watched, I’m aware only of a steady ticking in my veins, my heart pumping blood, and the desire to flee.
The vision repeated.
I watched from an infinity of angles, zooming in on minute details, the resolution on the Reaper’s camera truly extraordinary, the ‘robust suite of visual sensors’ a bona fide marvel of American technology. (We lived in marvelous times.) I watched mother and daughter, taking note of their hands as they held to one another, as if afraid to let go. I’d always been fascinated by hands, their ability to express intelligence and emotion, things inexpressible, their undeniable grace. (I may be odd, but hands are sexy.) I zoomed to each face moments before the flash. And in their frozen laughter, their every word, I discovered not only ‘good-bye,’ but the infinite variations of ‘I love you.’ The screen blew out. And again, our love of death masqueraded as love itself.
And again, the girl, the goats. The mother. The armed men disappeared into the dark of the house. The radio chatter voices rigid with hunting dog tension, a very real lust ticking inside, the decision made.
“Hail Mary, clear to fire.”
But the missiles, both of them, remained attached.
“Hail Mary, clear to fire,” the voice betrayed irritation, but SEALs were always irritated. I continued my orbit, continued watching the life below, the lives being lived. “Fire, Hail Mary.” No mere irritation now. Hotrod 26 would employ one of the many submission techniques he’d mastered against me if he could, a Muay Thai shin kick prodding me into action. A visit from the ‘motivation police,’ as one SEAL put it after a night of drinking, a ‘sense of urgency’ imparted. And yet, there was no Muay Thai kick. Hotrod 26 was seven thousand very real miles away. But behind me, I heard movement. A shift of feet and energy. A sea change.
There’s a pause before what happened next, a space occupied by what I’ll call disbelief. Followed almost immediately by fear. That what’s happened to me could happen to them. That it’s contagious, like a virus. To banish this fear, Colonel Puffer stepped forward, as if I’d simply forgotten, and said Fire, Grace—a hint of embarrassment in his voice, an apology almost. After all, there was a general officer present, someone he aspired to be, the unsmiling men in golf shirts and Oakleys. When I didn’t fire, Puffer shifted into fear – also known as this is really happening – grabbing for the joystick, to fire the missiles, and to accomplish the mission, the execution of these very bad men – the job we’d trained for, are paid to do – one that we are strangely in agreement on: Bad men die bad.
It’s true.
Yet I refused to give up control. It’s my aircraft. I made the decisions. As the GCS erupted into noise and movement, I fixated on the mother and her pregnant belly, that sun radiating brilliant life. The Duality! She’s the Duality! I explained it to them – the general, the men in the golf shirts and Oakleys, even Puffer though he’s merely a functional character, and functioning as advertised – God! She’s God! but they don’t listen, insisting on struggling with me, as if deaf. Puffer called to Akintoye and Hussein, their own disbelief paralyzing them, fear making their coffee go cold, for help wresting the joystick from my hands. I hugged the stick, yelling for them to look! absorbing their fists, protecting it, eyes locked on mother and daughter. Kmetz chattered into his mic, eyes flares, as if chained to his post, reminding me of something my father said of the North Vietnamese SAM sites as he roared overhead, said he could see them chained to their guns. It’s odd that I remembered that, especially now, but it’s a good story, a testament to my father’s unique sense of ‘truth,’ his ability to make lies come true. The video feed spun. I lost sight of mother and daughter.
I’m pulled from my chair. Akintoye held me in powerful arms, his Division III All- American second team offensive lineman’s bulk, but he’s surprisingly gentle, tender even, as if a favorite uncle has had a seizure, an episode of some kind, and he’s unsure what to do, afraid he’ll hurt me. And while Puffer fought to recover the aircraft, his career on the line, Kmetz absorbed my betrayal with a smile, as if I’d impressed, or at the very least entertained him, a story being retold even now in his mind, over happy hour Jack and Cokes. I smiled back. Akintoye’s on top of me now, his full weight, maybe 230, 240, though he’d been trying to lose weight, skipping lunch, jogging with Hussein instead, but still he’s a big guy, and he’s pleading It’s okay. It’s okay. Please, sir. One swat from his paw and I’m done—didn’t he know that? I’m moved by his purity I’ll call it. That he still believed. And while Akintoye righted the world, as if such a thing was still possible, I saw Aguilar, or what the mushrooms told me was Aguilar, it didn’t matter, the full force of her eyes on me, gold and shining. She placed a hand on my brow and I went still.
Pilotless, the Reaper dizzied into the hills, the feed registering treetop, then ground, then darkness, vaguely familiar shapes – trunks, boulders, sunlight – as if a final glimpse before tumbling down an endless hole. And then black.
The girl, her unborn sibling, their mother—they heard nothing. Distant thunder maybe.
Brian O’Hare is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, former Marine Corps officer and Gulf War veteran. He’s an award-winning writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. Brian is the winner of the Syracuse University Press 2021 Veterans Writing Award for Surrender, his book of short stories. He was named a Writing Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and served as Visiting Writer at CUNY/Kingsborough in Brooklyn. In March 2023, along with literary icons Tobias Wolff and Tim O’Brien, Surrender was read as part of a WORDTheatre (Los Angeles) event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. He’s at work on his debut novel, A Gathering of Vultures.
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