. . .
But I really came to value that expressionless confidence,
though. When we get ambushed outside Safwan because command couldn’t be
bothered to cover our asses with tanks, Cole flicks off the safety of
his gun, says “There are men in the trees,” and starts firing. He gets
us all out of the kill box with our limbs attached. He doesn’t seem too
concerned.
. . .
A week later, we’re waiting for two hours as command tries to unscrew itself from a wrong turn. Ureña is explaining to Parker how to
find the MREs with Pop-Tarts in them. I approach Cole, hunched over
maps on the hood of his victor.
I can’t help it. “Why did you drop out of Harvard?”
He doesn’t blink. “I never went. Sir.”
What.
“I was accepted to Harvard medical school. I declined attendance.”
“Why.” On Earth.
“My parents went to Harvard medical school.” He sweeps up his maps and strides off.
“Dude. What’d you do?” Ureña approaches me from behind, more serious than I’ve ever seen him.
“He didn’t go to Harvard,” I say, stunned. “But he’s a genius.”
“Uh… yeah,” Ureña says slowly. “He went up to the admissions board
and thanked them, then told them where to shove it.” He narrows his
eyes at me. “My boy Harvard don’t just tell people things. The hell, El
Tee?”
I watch Cole approach command with the maps, as the garage door pulls up, rational in the face
of their unending stupidity. Try to imagine defiance on his
face. “I don’t know.”
. . .
When I finally manage to get a hold of some oil for the
M-16 on the top of victor one, I corner Cole. “Here. You don’t wanna
know what I had to do to get that.”
He nods, stares at the oil. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” He plucks it from my hands and marches back to the jammed gun.
“Wow. You really are trying to court him,” Ureña says from his position in his ranger grave.
“Go away, Nolan.”
“What did I do?” He holds his hands up, looks pretty
genuinely surprised. “Jeez, El Tee. I’m just saying. Not alotta
of people wanna get close to his kind of crazy, is all. Don’t ever seem
like he give a crap. Even his fiancé ditched him.”
My brain isn’t processing the word ‘fiance’, so I just nod.
“Hey you shut up about this stuff, by the way,” he calls as I leave.
. . .
But when we’re holed up in Nasiriyah, dealing with the mess that is command’s idea for a road blockade, it’s Parker’s
crazy that ruins everything. There’s this van. And it’s not stopping,
so Parker goes to fire warning flares, and instead shoots the driver.
And it turns out, as Cole pulls her out of the back seat, a
little girl. Everyone but Cole starts swearing. Ureña shoves Parker to
the ground, going “white trash whiskey tango piece of crap.”
Cole just strides to the med tent where McDoc is, going “Right
radial contusions, second-degree burns across ulna.” Parker is
psychoing out, Ureña’s screaming, Sergeant Major Sixta is yelling about
court marshals. Cole is saving her life.
After he fights Komack to get a med evac for the girl, I find
him under his victor, viciously whacking tar and sand off his axels.
“Cole. I got you some more oil. And batteries for your NVGs.”
He doesn’t let me see his face. I lie under the humvee with him for a
while, until the temperature drops and we have to go dig our graves.
Get a free, in-home, no obligation quote from a trained garage door specialist who will come to your home and take measurements.
Call: (800) 893-1107
or fill out form below.