Maybe I ate it...
Maybe I ate it...
A meander through the world and experiences of Hot Box by J. Aaron Courts
Okay, guys, here’s some of the bonus material I mentioned rolling into 2024— what Steinbeck might call an interstitial of Hot Box— and others might refer to as a vignette. I hope you enjoy it. If so, please like, share, and encourage your friends and family to follow updates of their own by subscribing to The Sword & Pen. There is some other cool stuff at the end of the story which you’re encouraged to check out, including information about my illustrator and his art and some about my editor. Semper Fidelis. — Aaron
Corporal Danner stared at Hot Box somewhat dazed, and his mind settled on a feeling which he couldn’t shake. He waited at the ECP, mere feet from the bunker’s entrance, while the guards obtained authorization for his re-entry. It had been a couple of weeks since he and his driver, and dozens of others, were nearly crushed in the bunker, and Corporal Danner wondered if the Marine who had panicked was stateside yet?
They were in Hot Box for what seemed like hours. Most of the Marines who sheltered in the bunker had been outside of the camp prepared to leave on one convoy or another, so they wore tactical gear— helmets and flak jackets and load bearing vests— they carried weapons and ammunition. Everyone had donned their gas mask, and some even wore their MOPP gear.
Corporal Danner was focused on his driver who appeared to fade in and out of consciousness after he tripped and struck his head, but then a Marine near the bunker’s entrance began to panic. Waves of pressure— physical pressure— surged against the crammed men as the Marine screamed and jerked and as those closest were forced to move to help him. Eventually, he ripped off his gas mask and tried to shoot himself in the head. If he’d carried a pistol like Corporal Danner, the Marine would’ve succeeded, but he didn’t. He carried a rifle and couldn’t chamber a round, get his finger on the trigger, and keep the barrel in his mouth compressed as everyone was. Corporal Danner saw his teeth shatter when someone yanked the barrel out of his mouth and disarm him, but all he could think about at the time was for those close to the Marine to stop him.
Without his firearm, the panicked troop was left with only one option, and after a few moments, he drew his KA-BAR and fought several of his brothers to try and shove it through his own eye and into his brain. Stop him. Stop him! “Stop The Mother Fucker!” Corporal Danner screamed through his mask. And they did, again, but lost all composure in the melee, and the Marine was beaten into the sand mercilessly. They left him broken and bleeding until the all-clear was sounded. Then Corporal Danner did as everyone else. He stepped over his body, simply relieved that the Marine was quiet and that they had stopped him— stopped him from moving— stopped him from making things more uncomfortable for themselves.
One of the guards on post moved to make room for Corporal Danner in the cammie netting’s broken shade, and the movement began to pull his mind back to the present. It was hot, and yet he stood motionless in the sun and tried to let his guilt seep into the sand and disappear, just as they had let the Marine’s blood and teeth seep into the sand and disappear. The poor kid’s mother— if he ever smiles again.
“Turned your scab in?” the guard asked, but what he meant was, ‘Are you cold? Do you have a fever?’ He moved over and created even more space for Corporal Danner to join him out of the sun.
He ignored the question at first, then looked at the guards more closely. They had fresh suede boots, absent the inevitable sand burnished tips, and only the faintest hint of salt rings formed on their blouses at the base of their flak jackets and around their armpits. And this guard— the one without a radio— was asking about the scabs.
“They’re fresh,” he thought then memories of his own arrival flooded his mind and replaced those of the bunker he swore to never set foot in again.
Almost everyone received a smallpox vaccination before they arrived in country. In fact, Corporal Danner didn’t know of anyone who hadn’t. Some of the older Marines carried the pocked thumbprint sized scar on their shoulder of course, but for the vast majority, they were vaccinated in the hours prior to boarding their war-bound planes and had about a week in country before their swollen glands and fever ground them into their racks.
“This is going to turn into a sore, then scab over,” the corpsman told Corporal Danner as he prepared the bifurcated needle. “You’ll feel a little sick in a few days. Probably have a slight fever.” He pricked Corporal Danner’s shoulder a few times then continued. “Don’t touch it and don’t pick at the scab; it’s a live virus. Here, take this.” Each Marine and Sailor was given a small Ziplock bag with an individually wrapped alcohol swab and one Band-aide.
“Now,” the corpsman continued, “when the scab falls off…” He looked into Corporal Danner’s eyes for the second time since asking him to confirm his name and social security number. “Do not pick the scab!”
Corporal Danner held the clear bag up and studied it.
“When it falls off,” he said, again, “collect it in the bag, then wipe your hands with the alcohol swab, and put the Band-aide over the wound.”
“What do I do with the baggie?” Corporal Danner asked.
“Keep it on you.”
“No. After I collect the scab? What then? Throw it away?” The Corpsman looked at him for the third time.
“No, Corporal. Do not throw a live virus in the trash for others to handle. Give it to your Corpsman in country.”
“Roger.”
“Don’t pick the—”
“Yeah. I got it, doc. Don’t pick it. Don’t eat it. Don’t throw it away. Copy all.”
The corpsman sighed and looked down at the roster. “Next!”
It took about a week for it to happen, but he did get sick— everyone did. In fact, when the fever hit, he was useless for days. He laid on his cot and moved only enough to drag himself to a porta-john or the closest bunker when alarms sounded. The glands in his neck, armpits, and groin were swollen, and he’d sweated through the cot so thoroughly one night, he thought he’d pissed himself. He woke up starving on the third day and seriously considered if they’d mixed up the smallpox with a dose of something more bubonic.
An uncanny realization stood alone in the forefront of his mind— something was scratching him…
Corporal Danner stared overhead at the Bedouin tent which sprawled to protect them from the desert’s unforgiving sun and wind. His eyes were drawn to the strange mustard colored cloth and could see in his peripheral a line of red cotton tassels, stretched like gypsy crown molding, along the seam where the side walls and draped ceiling panels met. An itch pulled his mind away from the warm colors. Nothing intolerable exactly; it was something more soothing, like an itch being scratched maybe. He hadn’t experienced anything soothing since his arrival in country, and the oddity of the sensation shoved itself past the tent’s tassels and mesmerizing colors, the ravenous hunger which follows a three-day stupor, and every other delirium his imagination conjured. An uncanny realization stood alone in the forefront of his mind— something was scratching him— scratching an itch on his arm. He turned his head and his eyes widened. He was frozen stiff, and yet his own hand was there, self-animate and lightly scratching his shoulder.
“Fuck!”
Corporal Danner jumped out of the rack and held his right hand as far from his body as he could while he fumbled through a small pile of gear to find his blouse. A tan button popped off his chest pocket and skidded across the plywood deck as he stepped on the bottom of the blouse and tried to free the Ziplock bag from the pocket under his name tag.
Corporal Danner wiped his contaminated right hand until the alcohol swab had dried and was thankful it wasn’t his left. His wedding band wouldn’t have come off if it had been, and the thought of smallpox incubating under his ring made him shudder. Then he opened the Band-aide and placed it over the red-slime filled hole in his arm. Dried flesh rimmed the wound and a small pool of blood where the scab was unanchored leaked through the cheap plastic bandage. Maybe it’s stuck to the cot.
Corporal Danner pulled back the camouflage poncho liner that had been his blanket during fever-fits to look for the scab. He held the poncho liner by its binding like his touch would pop an invisible spider’s egg sack and thousands of frenzied arachnids would crawl up his arms and neck and lose themselves in his hair. There was no scab.
He looked on the deck under and around his cot— no scab. The fucking poncho liner!
He held the liner up and turned it in the fluorescent light of a fixture attached to the nearest tent pole. He examined one side and then the other— no scab. It might has well have sprouted legs and scurried away like one of the tiny spiders. What the actual fuck. It was lost.
He stood there for a few moments and collected his thoughts. “Well shit,” he said then went to the trash can under the same light fixture and threw his Ziplock bag away with the used swab and wrappers sealed inside.
“Hey!” a voice said, “You’re supposed to give that to the Corpsman. You can’t throw that—”
“Scab’s gone,” Corporal Danner said.
A torso shot up three cots down. “What do you mean it’s gone? Where’d it go?”
“Not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?” The Marine was leaned back so far over the edge of his cot that he almost fell. “It’s gotta be—”
“Must of eaten it in my sleep.”
Editorial note:
This interstitial is from my book, Hot Box, which is a collection of stories primarily focused on the experiences of three Marines in the days leading up to the initial invasion of Iraq. They are an unnamed Lance Corporal, the Corporal you have just read about, and a Korean American named Staff Sergeant Heo.
It is a work of fiction and my imagination entirely, so similarities to actual persons are mere coincidence. With that said, it is also wholly inspired by actual events that I experienced— or observed— as a Corporal of Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom-I during the first half of 2003.
The book is being illustrated by one of today’s very few active-duty artists with the Marine Corps Combat Art Program, Major Mike Reynolds, USMC, who I served with while in uniform. Mike is exceptionally talented, and I’ve commissioned numerous original works for my private collection over the years. He does not disappoint. Interested parties can view his work on his website here and on his Instagram page here, and inquiries may be forwarded to his email at 40mmart@gmail.com.
My editor is Donnella Looger, with DRL Press. Working with her has been an absolute joy. You may find out more information about DRL Press and Donnella on her website here and inquiries may be submitted via her contact form here.
If this excerpt interested you, I encourage you to subscribe to The Sword & Pen. I will be publishing updates on the project and additional material in the coming months. You are also encouraged to visit Pane Publishing Company’s Instagram here.