It’s hot. I’m sitting in the office at the gas station in basketball shorts and a blue wifebeater. Two fans are circulating the stuffy air, taking the edge off the office’s greenhouse effect. I’m bored. There was an interesting story about internet culture earlier on NPR, but the words have gelled together into a monotonous buzz.
A customer walks into the office. A white man, a little chubby, with sandy brown hair. He’s wearing a pink and red striped button up with blue jeans. He looks like he could be in his mid twenties, but I’m not sure. If he asks for cigarettes, I’ll card him. I say good afternoon, and he returns the nicety while inspecting the sodas in our freezer. He grabs a blue Mountain Dew with World of Warcraft characters on the bottle and stares at it, apparently amused by the absurdity of a corporate marriage between a soft drink and a videogame. He hands me exact change for the soda, $1.25.
“It’s hot as balls out there,” he says.
I laugh. “Yeah it is.”
“I’m just going to stay in here and stand beneath the fan if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, knock yourself out.”
He points to our display of cigarettes. “That’s a **** ton of Newports. That the most popular brand around here?”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m a Marlboro man myself. Newports are okay, but it’s too hot for menthol today.” I don’t say anything at first. I smoke on rare occasions, and when I do its Marlboros. I bum them from my wife.
“Yeah, it’s hot, but it’s better than winter I suppose,” I say after a pause. “I don’t know what I ever saw in cold weather.”
“Oh, I love winter,” he says. “But I’m a skier, I spent every weekend going up to Vermont when I was a kid, so I guess I got used to it. Plus the blubber helps.” I laugh as he takes a swig of his soda. “Next summer I’m going to be in Afghanistan. It’s going to suck, it’s hot as **** over there.
“You’re in the Army?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Navy. It’s going to be so hot over there. Plus the bullets flying around.”
I’m not sure what to say. “A friend of mine just got back from Iraq. Hopefully by next summer Afghanistan will have calmed down like Iraq did.” I hope that my weak attempt at solidarity and wishful thinking come across as slightly more than worthless.
“I’ll be doing Blackwater over there. You heard of them?” I nod my head. “It pays well, really well. You make $50,000 for two months, that’s more than some people make in a year. But you have to guard diplomats and officials. So you walk next to their cars, with your weapon like this,” he demonstrates the proper way to carry it, “looking around and wondering ‘What the **** is going to happen next?’”
“But it’s ****ing hot. I’m going to die over there, or at least a part of me is. They just gave us our hot weather gear. There’s these boots that keep your feet cool. I wear flip-flops everywhere, unless I’m running or doing exercises, so I’m thinking boots? But they have this special insulation. You think you’d be walking around in puddles of sweat, but they really keep your feet cool! It’s crazy.”
I want to say that I thought about joining the Army, and that I did ROTC in high school, but it sounds pathetic even as I think about it. I listen and nod instead.
His soda’s about halfway gone. He’s ready to go. “What’s your name, man?” he asks as he extends his hand towards me.
“Jamil. And yours?” I ask and shake his hand.
“Matt. Take it easy.”
“You too. Keep yourself safe over there.”
He stops in the door and turns back towards me. “I’ll do my best.” I watch as he pulls out of the parking lot. He’s driving a gold Volkswagon station wagon, probably his parent’s car. He stops at the red light not five hundred feet from my office. The light flickers to a green left turn signal, and he’s gone.
