Saint Michael, Defend Us
Your enemy ends up leaving their mark on you. That’s what Pastor Tom had said. He said, “You might not have known what that tattoo really was when you first got it, but you did know. Your soul knew. God gave you that tattoo.”
He gave me a purpose, too, Tom.
Couldn’t ask for better visibility. It’s usually foggy this early in the morning, but not today. Not everything’s divinely ordained, I know, but sometimes, some things are. Almost zero-six. One more hour.
Light at your two o’clock, Six.
Roger, Six-Six. Good copy. Light on in the upstairs bedroom.
Don’t hate me, Tom. I don’t know if you’ll understand what I do. You’re a vet, sure, and I love that about you, I really do. You pulled me out of a dark place. Shirley had left me. She took my boys, Mikey and Gabe. I don’t even know where they are. I’m not allowed to know, said the judge. My own mother wouldn’t even tell me. She said to me, over the phone, she said, “You came back a different person.” A different person? Mom, I had wanted to say to her but didn’t, you have no fucking idea. Except you, Tom, you really helped me. I thank God for you. You don’t know how close I was. A bullet and it could’ve all been over. A fast drive over a cliff. But you showed me, picked me up. You showed me that I could still have a purpose.
Light on in the kitchen. Movement behind the curtain.
Good copy, Six-Six.
I got your back, Six. I always got your back.
Good to know somebody does. Took me all night to get here, driving across four states, fumbling through the woods, trying to find the same spot again in the dead of night. I had marked it with 550-cord around a sassafras trunk but that shit’s hard to see under a red lens flashlight. It wasn’t just luck that I found it again, was it? The perfect spot. Visual on the entire frontyard, driveway, garage, front door, most of the windows in this McMansion.
Nothing but a land of McMansions around the Beltway. No hope for people like me affording any of them. The people who live here aren’t real people. They’re all politicians, minions, bureaucrats, pundits, think-tank people. Even the military brass have become tainted by the whole dog-and-pony show. No one pays for any mistakes. No one’s ever fired or charged for war crimes. They get to send us wherever, to whatever shithole country the latest cable news celebrity says we should go, and no one has to answer for a fucking thing. Except now I’ve got my own weapon of mass destruction right here, tucked in the pocket of my shoulder.
Door open at your twelve, Six. Target exiting. Walking to their Tesla in the drive. Snap to it. Stay frosty. Breathe. Hold one, Six.
What?
Civilian exiting, too. Good copy, Six. No women, no kids, remember?
Roger, Six. No women, no kids.
Wait till the General comes back from dropping his kid off at school.
Roger, Six-Six. Standing by.
Need to have some rules, right? Rules of engagement. Even if the General’s daughter is a bit older, a high schooler by the look of her, and probably eligible for military service, she still doesn’t need to see this. Might be kids all over the world seeing their parents blown up by a drone or worse. But we got rules. That makes us better than them. Righter. What’d that ISIS guy say in his YouTube video? Holding a Quran in one hand and an AK in the other? “With God on my side, I am a conquering warrior.” That’s what these generals never understand. This General may have been in charge when I was over there but he was still placating the crowds back home, playing the game, caring more about their career, their next book, that contracting job once they finally retire, than their own soldiers. How many bodies do these people leave in their wake? Choking in the sand, like Mack? Shot in the throat. Sniper shot. Fucker had been hiding in the muezzin. Couldn’t fire on him, not even with our platoon marksman—me. I couldn’t do anything. Mack choked on his own fucking blood, till he gave up the ghost. I couldn’t do anything. Lieutenant Urie said we couldn’t fire on religious buildings, repeating the same bullshit policy that had come down from on high. From the General, and all the others like him. That’s what these people never understand. That’s why we lost. The sniper in the muezzin, the ISIS guy on YouTube, they’re fighting for God, and when it comes to something worth fighting for, worth dying for, how do you beat God?
Tesla returning at your seven, Six.
Roger, Six-Six.
You know the deal. On the step, right as he pauses to open the screen door.
Roger.
You good, Six?
Roger, Six-Six, I’m good. Cheek to stock. Crosshairs center mass. The pale white button of his blue shirt, like a pearl. You are the ground. The ground is you.
That tattoo on my back? I got it after my first deployment. Didn’t know what the hell I was really getting. Just thought it looked cool. Big angel with a sword. Wings outspread. A lance with a giant cross at the top. And under the lance, under the toe of the archangel, writhes Satan.
Breathe out, let it settle. Bottom of the breath. Pull back gently on the trigger. Let it surprise you.
J.G.P. MacAdam is the first in his family to earn a college degree. Over seven years active duty in the US Army, he spent time in Korea, Afghanistan, Fort Drum, and Washington, D.C. His publications can be found in The Colorado Review, The Atticus Review, JMWW, Pithead Chapel and Consequence, among others. You can find him at jgpmacadam.com
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