Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4133)

Sitting Thirty-Two

Sergeant Minioz lay on his bunk, confined to his barracks, awaiting the outcome of the charges levied against him: absent without leave and dereliction of duty.

Plenty of time to think.

The first realization was that if he had used the time two weeks earlier to be just a little more reflective, he might not be sequestered, trying to figure out if the stink was coming from the room or from him.

Fresh in his mind was the questioning he endured from his major, a petty young officer with a jaw of granite and the disposition of a camel (if it had hemorrhoids.)

He remembered it well.

“What is your rank?” barked the major.

That one was easy. The stripes on Minioz’s shoulder told it all.

“Serial number,” came the next demand.

The sergeant had that one memorized. He also got the right platoon, company, commander and the days of the week complete and accurate.

Then the questions got tougher. The major drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, as he queried, “Have you now, or have you ever lost any military issue?”

Now there was the heart of the matter. Minioz paused for a second and decided it best for his cause to focus on the word “lost”—because certainly, he had never “lost” anything. After all, having something snatched by a little brat was not having it “lost,” right?

Minnioz spat out as quickly as possible so as not to appear tentative. “No, sir, I have never lost any military issue.”

The major spit right back. “Are you presently in possession of your entire weapon stockpile?”

Once again, the sergeant breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for the words “presently” and “in possession.” For Minioz had rectified his lack of a hand grenade by purchasing one at an Army surplus store in the city. It did not work—disarmed—and he hoped he would never have to demonstrate its purpose and power. But still, it hung impressively from his belt.

So the answer was simple. Yes, presently he was in possession of all of his military weapons. Of course, he did not volunteer the considerable span of time he was absent some hardware, which he had tracked down in the desert to two little punks who had outsmarted him and nearly killed them all.

The delay between questions was maddening. A bead of sweat broke on Minioz’s brow. He tried to stop the dribble but after all—how does one do that?

And then, the next challenge: “If you are in possession of all of your weapons, why was a report filed that you were attempting to retrieve a hand grenade which you alleged had been stolen from you?”

The brain of Sergeant Minioz exploded like a volcano. Report filed? Whom had he told? Who knew? Who had the evidence to derail him if he lied?

Of course, it’s very difficult to contemplate the correct answer without appearing evasive, so as quickly as possible, the sergeant retorted, “I know of no report, and know of no alleged charge and know of no one who would make such a claim.”

Minioz managed to stop himself before incoherency took over his reply. The fussy major stared at him but said nothing. Had he gotten by with it? Was his answer so twisted that the major was afraid to disassemble it?

But apparently, it was not enough. Obviously, the major knew more than Minioz thought he knew. Now it seemed that his superior officer was just stalling to watch him squirm.

The sergeant chose silence, limited his squirming and suffered through what was now a stream of perspiration.

After a long pause of scrutiny, the major spoke again. “So that is your answer?” he thundered.

Minioz widened his eyeballs to try to keep away some tears of fear. “Entirely, for now,” he piped back.

The major didn’t miss a beat. “So why were you absent from your post without leave?”

Minioz was not prepared to answer, but grateful to get away from the subject of the hand grenade. He cleared his throat and spoke slowly to the major. “Personal problems forbade me, sir, from arriving at camp at the designated time. Poor judgment prevented me from reporting my status, and utter stupidity kept me away a little longer out of fear of punishment.”

Sudden silence. The sergeant muted a smile. It was quite an answer, threatening truth. Matter of fact, in the history of all military justice, it might have been the best response ever offered.

The major nodded. The answer had even impressed Old Sour Britches. “One final question,” he posed. “Is there any truth to the rumor that a hand grenade is loose and available among the citizenry, which found its point of origin in our camp?”

“Sir,” said Minioz, “I do not know the whereabouts of every hand grenade in this camp. I do not want to be so presumptuous as to suggest that such an absence is not possible. All I know is that my hand grenade is hanging from my belt, and ready for further orders.”

Minnioz felt horrible. He knew he had lied. It wasn’t a big whopper, but certainly, a stinky fish laying on the dock.

But he thought to himself, “Is it really a lie, when the alternative is so dastardly and detrimental to all parties involved? Sometimes the truth is just a sword ready to behead everyone in the room.”

Sergeant Minioz was busy trying to make sense of his own failure. Whatever the answer, he was going to stick to his story. He chuckled to himself. After all, he had just purchased one dud to replace the dud the government had issued him. 

 

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Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4022)

Sitting Sixteen

The editor sat, staring her in the eyes. He refused to avert his gaze, so she continued hers, hoping to win the standoff.

She could hear herself breathing. The quiet between the two of them made it possible for her to feel her heart beating.

After a moment, he leaned back in his chair. “No,” he concluded. “You’re wrong. The truth is, we don’t ‘got to do’ anything. Just because you’ve lost your objectivity doesn’t mean I’m going to follow you over the cliff.” He shook his head. “Young lady, you’ve got to remember what your job is. I just hate it when people try to do other people’s jobs. Hell—I don’t want my butcher talking to me about tomatoes, and I’m not particularly pleased to have my dentist comment on my haircut.”

He continued. “Here’s the thing. I don’t want my reporters, or in this case, you, pretending that she is really privately working as a social services agent. You’re a reporter, so start acting like one.”

Karin stood tall, walked over to the chair and sat down. “A reporter’s first duty is to find the story,” she said. “Try finding a story without becoming involved in the lives of the people who are dictating to you what you must write on the page. How antiseptic do you think you can become before doing all your work wearing kid gloves? Yes. I won’t deny it. This story reaches me. I guess from your perspective, you would claim it’s dirtied me. But nevertheless, it is a story. If you think I’m too passionate, edit my copy. Or isn’t that what you do?”

He smiled. The editor was always amused at Karin’s spunk—sometimes even drew it out or exaggerate it by generating fictitious conflict. He waved his hands in the air as if surrendering and said, “Okay. What’s your angle?”

Karin paused. She didn’t want to come across too verbose, or worse, off-point. What was her angle? She had already lied and had appeared too high-strung. So where did she intend to go with a story like this one, which was begging to become an obsession?

“Let’s help them.” That’s all she said.

The editor ferociously shook his head. “There you go again, back to saving the world. Don’t you understand, girl, if the world were to blow up tomorrow, I would put out my last edition of the paper ten minutes before the explosion, and have my sales team on the street drumming up advertising—until we were all dead.” He pointed at her. “I’m a newspaper man. I don’t care about solutions. Sometimes they get in my way. I know you don’t want to hear that, and if you ever told anyone that I said that, I’d call you a disgruntled employee and a liar. But I don’t dare care about solutions because if I do, I’m gonna miss the next juicy problem that needs to be addressed. It is not my intention to give you a sermon. I’m just trying to get your head back on straight. I need my good reporter back.”

Karin felt a quick flush of pride over being dubbed “good.” The editor’s compliments were infrequent. He was as cheap with his praise as he was with his pocketbook. But she pressed on.

“Let me go back out there. How about this? Let me see who comes to them. Let me just report how it plays out without trying to affect it in any way.”

“What is it they want?” the editor asked.

“I thought you didn’t care,” chided Karin.

He snorted. “Isn’t what they want part of the story?”

Karin sucked in a deep breath. Maybe she was tired. Maybe it was her religious training. Or maybe she was just being softened by the editor calling her a good reporter. Who could say? But she was plagued by a guilty conscience. She couldn’t go on. Her presentation to her boss was built on sand—the granules of a lie. She had to tell him the truth—so Karin took a few minutes to relate the whole story—the broken-down vehicle, the angry sergeant, the boys, the hand grenade, the confrontation and the fact that the weapon ended up being a dud.

She explained that the grenade was buried in the desert, and how the one boy seemed plagued with some craziness. She finished up by describing the wrestling match and the ride back to the city.

The editor listened quietly and carefully, conscious not to appear alarmed or disapproving.

“So you see,” Karin concluded, “I feel a little responsible for the two fellas. I know there’s a story here, but God forgive me, I need to be part of how this story pans out.”

The editor eyed her for a lengthy span of time. While he mused, she offered one afterthought. “Let me take it just a little further.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, but then changed it to a nod. He grumbled, “Let me make some calls.”

 

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Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4001)

Sitting Thirteen

Karin ran out of ladylike ways to handle the situation. She wanted to seem intelligent, in control or even demure. But the sight of a young boy walking toward a hand grenade which was capable of tearing his body to shreds, not to mention casting lethal shrapnel in her direction, stirred up all of her jungle instincts.

She ran and tackled Iz and threw him to the ground as the soldier made his way up the embankment to the grenade.

Even though Iz struggled—apparently possessed by some sort of demon of self-destruction—Karin climbed on his back and held him down, as the two lay panting, staring at the stumbling soldier like two chums on their bellies in front of a movie screen.

When Minioz came within two meters of the grenade, he paused, chin rubbing, head scratching, hands on hips, with loud cursing. He then gently tiptoed a centimeter at a time, closer and closer. Then, in one lightning-fast motion, he picked it up and held it in his hand.

Karin braced herself, ready for the impact of explosion.

Nothing.

The absence of nothing.

A perturbing, chilling silence.

Minioz looked around at the desert like a man discovering treasure, wondering if others passing by had seen. He was grateful.

Then he fell to his knees and started digging a hole. The sand was loose and light, and in no time at all, a two-meter chasm was unearthed. He dropped the dud inside and used his arms to quickly spread the sand over the top.

In the meantime, Karin had gradually climbed off Iz as the boy calmed, gaining sensibility. She flipped him over on his back, pinned his arms and shouted into his face, “Iz, what in the hell were you thinking?”

He stared at her—no, beyond her—and replied, “It just seemed like the time for us to die.”

Before Karin could respond, the sergeant, having completed his burial detail, suddenly stood and ran down the hill toward his jeep. Karin quickly pulled Iz to his feet. “Listen, I need to catch a ride with him. I will be back. Do you understand me? I am coming back. You must promise me…”

She stopped. What did she want to say? What was he supposed to promise? The young fellow was obviously damaged and needed some help. His friend was on a lark and didn’t realize the serious nature of his buddy’s situation. So what promise could Iz keep?

In the midst of her deliberation, Iz pointed and said, “Lady, look.”

Karin quickly glanced down the hill as the soldier leaped into his jeep, frantically started the engine, put it in gear, whirled it around and took off.

Karin just shook her head and said, “Wow.”

“I guess you’re stuck here with us,” Iz said.

Karin collapsed back onto the sand, half in exhaustion and half exasperation. She said, “My mother told me never to date soldiers. She said everything they have is a weapon, and unfortunately, they’re still in training.”

Pal walked up and looked down at the defeated reporter. “I guess we don’t have a grenade anymore,” he said.

Iz shook his head and intoned, “That’s not good.”

Karin looked at the two boys, who had obviously separated the little bit of sense they once had from the reality they now knew.

They didn’t understand.

No one understood.

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Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)

Jonathots Daily Blog

(3994)

Sitting Twelve

A comedy of horrors, worst fears realized—for a bedraggled, sweaty soldier huffed and puffed his way to the top of the hill, screaming, frustrated and completely aggravated by the role of bully, which had been thrust upon him by two thieving, punk hoodlums.

A young Arab boy, gasping for his next breath, too frightened to move from the clawing hands of his attacker, the great Behemoth of military strength.

A seasoned female reporter, jaded by the world around her, reduced to becoming a screeching tearful lass in distress at the prospect of the mayhem unfolding before her eyes.

And then there was the young Jewish boy, sitting quietly, overly calm, holding a hand grenade and heaving huge sighs as tears careened down his cheeks.

The scene was an active one, filled with danger, yet unnervingly still, poised in the moment, as the great fear of all those concerned had now become reality.

The soldier, focusing in on Pal, pulled on his leg, yanking him down the hill as the boy pleaded in the many languages of his culture.

Meanwhile, Karin was punching the arm of the enraged soldier, shouting obscenities and trying to trip him with her legs.

Iz remained quiet. But then, all at once, he commanded, “Stop!”

It wasn’t that his voice was powerful and loud. He was standing on his feet, holding the hand grenade in his outstretched hands, his finger fiddling with the pin. Yet the soldier only delayed for a moment—then scoffed and continued pulling Pal down the hill.

Iz seemed peaceful, wide-eyed and aware when he squeezed the pin and pulled it from the fuse.

Everything halted.

Karin ran the few short feet to Iz as the soldier scrambled up the hill and grabbed the grenade from his hand. Iz remained like a statue—immovable. The sergeant, though well-trained, was petrified and froze.

Karin squalled, “Do something!”

Hearing those words, all of the training that Minioz had received kicked into gear. He wielded back and with the brute force granted only to a soul energized by adrenalin, he hurled the grenade across the desert, as everyone leaped to the sand.

That is, everyone but Iz. The young boy stood and watched as the grenade flew through the air and bounced on the sand about thirty meters away.

Everyone waited. Everyone held a collective breath. And then, everyone was bewildered.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Very gradually, each of them got up from the ground, staring in the distance at the tiny object lying on the sand, which for some reason, had failed to deliver its big bang.

“What happened?” whispered Karin.

Minioz wiped some sweat from his face. “A dud. Or maybe a fooler.”

Pal wiggled his way over to Iz’s side. “What’s a fooler?” he asked.

Minioz shook his head. “Sometimes they pretend not to work until you go over and try to move them again, and then they blow up in your face.”

All the gathered souls at the desert encampment paused for a moment and thought about the statement offered by the sergeant, each conjuring a horrifying word picture.

Iz finally spoke. “I told you to leave us alone.”

He possessed an unsettling tone—icy and cold, his pain seemingly buried deep inside. He walked toward the failed grenade.

Karin looked at Minioz, expecting him to do something. “Stop him!” she ordered.

The soldier just shook his head. “As I remember it,” he replied, “the one who throws it goes and gets it.”

Pal leaped to his feet and called his friend’s name. “Iz! Iz! Iz!”

Karin gained her feet and jogged toward the determined young man. The soldier rolled his eyes and simply said, “Oh, hell.”

He caught up and grabbed Karin’s arm. “I don’t want to be here when they pick up the bodies of a boy and a woman and ask me why I didn’t do something. I will get it. But in case you didn’t know, I really, really hate you.”

Minioz craned his neck and concluded, “You just make sure that crazy boy there stays out of the way.”

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