LARRY OF ARABIA

LARRY OF ARABIA

by Ricardo Cabeza

For Farraj

April 11, 1918

INTRODUCTION

I started writing this on February 10, 1995. The idea for a story about the gulf war came from a news story I heard that day on National Public Radio. The story was about a group of Japanese soldiers who had written a book in which they documented their involvement in torturing prisoners of war during World War II. I immediately began to think that we might one day read similar confessions from the servicemen who participated in Desert Storm.

As I lay on my bed thinking about the fact that the Japanese soldiers were now going to profit from their outrages, I found a story taking form in my mind, and I resolved to tell it, not because it is true, but because it seemed to be telling itself to me. Indeed, I had the bare bones of it in my head before the end of the newscast.

As with most of my stories, the characters contribute their lives with all their quirks and foibles. These naturally affect the tale. It has undergone many changes since February 10th, but I now have, I think, a story that remains true to the original idea and has given me another group of friends to spend time with.

I hope that you will enjoy spending time with them too.

The book is dedicated to Farraj, who was one of Lawrence's servants and rumoured to be gay. He died on April 11, 1918. He was wounded by the Turks and could not travel. Rather than leave him to the mercy of the enemy, Lawrence shot Farraj himself.

Ricardo

KUWAIT

ALI

You've seen him on television. It was during the Desert war and just after things blew up. He was the guy covered in oil from head to toe walking down the shoulder of the highway. I was the guy behind him with the gun. We were both pretty tired by the time the crew with the camera got to us, and by then Ali was pretty much under control. We had an understanding and he knew I wasn't going to kill him... at least I think he believed what I was trying to tell him. He was wearing a pair of my shorts too... well that was all he had on by then.

We didn't stop for the camera crew. They stopped for us. I wanted to get Ali down to the medics as quick as possible. I had just fished him out of the Gulf, mostly against his will, I think, and tried to scrape off as much of the gunk as I could with the back of my knife, but as you will recall, if you saw us on television, he was still dripping pretty bad in the footage they shot of us walking past the spot where they were interviewing Juarez.

If we didn't look too happy in the pictures you saw, it wasn't because we didn't like each other or anything like that. It was just that Juarez had a jeep and he was making us walk. It was because Ali and I were covered with oil, of course, but I knew from experience and Ali had already picked up from the one dealing he'd had with Juarez, that Juarez was an asshole.

I was a reservist and Juarez was regulation G.I. Joe. He didn't have too much good to say about us part-time commandos as he called us. You've already got my read on him.

We did manage to break up his interview with that bunch from Spanish television, though. They cut him off in mid-sentence when they saw us coming. Let's face it, Lieutenant, we were more colorful... well Ali was anyway.

You didn't get a good look at him on T.V. All you saw was a lot of Kuwaiti oil trudging down the road in a pair of black jockey shorts that used to be white.

I'd seen him without the oil. He was a good-looking kid... looked sort of Spanish-like... you know, olive skin with a deep desert tan, dark brown eyes that could've been black if the sun wasn't shining, wavy black hair with an unco-operative part that had to be manipulated against its will. I'd seen a lot of guys like Ali hanging out on street corners in New York... so had Juarez. Juarez had probably been one of them. But Ali sure as hell hadn't.

When Juarez first spotted Ali he had been standing on the docks where the tankers used to pull in to take on oil, only now the oil was pouring into the Gulf a mile a minute, and Ali was threatening to flick his bic.

There was enough gas around us to turn that place into hell in a hurry and Juarez was trying to talk him out of his plans for self-immolation when we arrived and saw what was going on. Juarez was talking in English and Spanish, the only two languages he had at his disposal. Ali was screaming back at him in Arabic. If it hadn't been such a tense situation, it might have been comical, but we didn't have any time to think about that.

Ali hadn't seen us arrive. We'd walked in... naturally... and we'd come down the docks behind him when we saw what was going on. We knew it was a standoff right away and Rawlings lifts his rifle up like he's gonna off the kid right there and then. I grabbed his gun and tried to tell him about the gas by pointing to his nose and wrinkling mine up like a rabbit, but I found out later that Rawlings doesn't have very good olfactory senses and doesn't know to this day what shit smells like... even though he's been in it most of his life.

Anyhow, I was in charge of a bunch of guys who were right out of boot camp, and I couldn't really trust them to have a feel for this situation anymore than Rawlings did. I knew it was up to me because I had no way of communicating with them without alerting the kid standing on the other side of the oil pipe. I held up my hand and then motioned to my squad to hunker down where they were. Then I slowly crept up on the kid trying to keep the pipe between us so he wouldn't be able to see me coming.

Juarez kept him talking... well, screaming would be a better word, I guess, and by the time I get to the other side of the pipe the kid is pretty agitated. He's already convinced himself to die and take the rest of us with him. That's when he spots me and two things happen at the same time. I see his thumb work the lighter and he steps back to avoid me and is swept off the dock by the oil he's trying to ignite.

I reached for him and I think he reached for me. I felt his fingers slip through mine and I knew that I had to save him. It was just that much contact that turned my enemy back into a fellow human being.

I felt the spray of oil hit me as I hurled myself at the edge of the wharf to see where he'd landed. There was no sign of him, but I did find a pike and I noticed some steel rungs that formed a ladder down to the Gulf. I grabbed the pike and headed for the ladder, half black with the stuff that had got us into the war in the first place.

The oil was thick on the Gulf water and above me it continued to shoot out over my head. It sprayed at me and made seeing difficult. I could imagine how the kid was feeling about then... and the thought sickened me. It was hard to hold onto the ladder rungs, which were also covered with oil spray, but I somehow managed and when I saw the kid, or what appeared to be a lump on the surface of the water that might have contained the kid, I was afraid that I was too late. Already Juarez was standing above the ladder and ordering me to climb back up. I pretended not to hear him. It wasn't hard. There was an awful racket.

I flailed the pike out and managed to hook the lump. The lump protested, but I had a piece of it and managed to drag it to the ladder. I had no idea how I was going to drag the kid up the ladder, but at least I had him out of the oil.

My squad had joined Juarez and his men and they put their heads together and found a life preserver. They lowered it to me and by this time I had wiped off enough of the oil to find the kid's head and shoulders. I slipped him into the ring and he slid right back out. I ordered more of the rope to be lowered and set to work fashioning a sling around the parts of the kid's body that I could find sticking out of the goop. Then they pulled the rope up and I climbed the ladder beneath him to make sure that the sling held him. That's when the rest of me got covered with the oil.

I looked at myself, then I looked at the kid. Well, I was thinking of him as a kid, but I supposed he was in his early twenties. As it turned out I was bang on with that guess... but he still looked like a kid. He was lying where they'd dropped him and gagging on the oil, but unable to wipe any of it away. I knelt beside him and pulled off my jacket and shirt. The shirt wasn't too bad, so I used it to clean his face as best I could. Then I poured some water from my canteen into his mouth and he spit it back out along with an oil slick. We did that until he stopped gagging. I was real happy I didn't have to do any mouth to mouth. I got his eyes and nose pretty clean too, but he was still blinking the sting away when I pulled out my knife and wiped it on my jacket.

The kid's face tensed and he got a look on it that scared me when I saw it. He was bracing himself to die... again. He thought I was going to kill him. His eyes followed the blade as I wielded it over him and sliced at his sling and then his clothing until he lay on the dock completely naked, except for the thick coating of oil.

I don't know if he thought that I was trying to humiliate him before executing him, but he did not move and his expression didn't change until I pulled him to his feet and turned the dull edge of the knife into what I can only describe as a snow scraper, except I figured the kid had never seen snow in his life.

He did however start to appear interested in what was happening to him, and I assured him as much with my tone of voice as I could with the English I was stuck with, that I was not going to let anything happen to him after pulling him out of the Gulf. I told him that he was just as good as any seabird that would be rescued, that as a prisoner of war he had nothing more to fear, and I think I also told him that he didn't have to go back to Iraq if he didn't want to.

That was when Juarez told me to shut the fuck up and march the kid down to Kuwait City.

When I complained that we should ride if we were going to have to travel all that way, Juarez sneered contemptuously.

"Not in my jeep, you're not."

"Fucking asshole," I answered. But Juarez was already gone... looking for camera crews, no doubt... they were all over the place. This was my first war. I had expected it to be a lot different. I hadn't expected to have to be on my best behavior every minute because some anchor from the Chicken Noodle Network might disapprove of my conduct, or I might offend America's sensibilities because my motives for wanting to lay waste to a foreign land might not agree with the politically correct reasoning that led me to be here laying waste to a foreign land.

"Ah, fuck!" I said and I guess I sighed. The kid sighed too and sort of watched the jeep disappear. He had a sort of annoyed look on his face until he looked back at me. Then he looked kind of expectant, like he was waiting for orders. I took it as a sign that we were both on the same wavelength and went back to scraping him. Then I fished a new uniform out of my knapsack and put it on.

I'd pretty much done a hatchet job on his clothes cutting them off him the way I had. I knew he didn't have anything else to wear, so I tossed a pair of jockey's at him and he pulled them on. I didn't have any problems with him after that. I let him fish what was left of his belongings out of his pants pockets and I put them in my knapsack for him. He had a couple of pieces of i.d. that were in pretty bad shape. We washed them off and pinned them to my knapsack to dry. Everything else we left lying there... well there wasn't any sense of taking it, it was ruined. I picked up my gun, pointed the kid south, and we set out to find a medic while my squad joined the others and continued north. But I had no intention of marching him all the way to Kuwait City like Juarez had said.

Fuck Juarez!

When you saw us on the news we had already covered a fair chunk of distance. As we walked I kept trying to communicate with the guy, but he didn't respond... except once when I used his name I thought he reacted. I knew his name because I had learned enough about the way they write to be able to identify the simple words when I saw them on a menu. Every other place over there is owned by somebody named Ali. If you didn't know better you'd figure the whole damned place was one big franchise operation, and come to think of it... well, it is... at least as far as the oil is concerned. I could see his papers flapping on my knapsack and one of his names was Ali, although I couldn't be sure which one, but I decided to call him that since it was all I had.

Any way I kept talking to him because I figured that he would be able to tell that I didn't want to kill him if I spoke to him in a non-threatening way... sort of like you might talk to a dog when you didn't want him to bite.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying he was a dog, but I figured that with him not speaking English and me not speaking Arabic, about the only way we could communicate would be through gestures and inflections. So I kept talking to him, using his name as much as possible, and telling him things that I probably wouldn't have told him if I thought that he could understand.

I told him about my town, my friends, the bar I normally hung out in and where I worked when I wasn't busy protecting a bunch of Kuwaiti sheiks from villains like the kid walking in front of me. Ali didn't seem to care. So I started talking about him and the view from where I stood. I told him that as a prisoner of war he would be provided for under the terms of the Geneva Convention. I told him that he would probably be better off in our stockades than he had been during the war in whatever foxhole Saddam had made him dig. He didn't seem to be able to understand any of this.

So I told him he had a nice ass.

He seemed to hitch when I said that, but I figured he had just stepped on something sharp. The fact that it had happened when I was telling him that he had nice buns was probably just a coincidence. But I decided not to mention any more about his anatomy... just in case.

I couldn't help thinking about it though as we hobbled along in silence. He was a nice looking kid, or had been before his dive into the Gulf. He'd been dressed in civies too, a white shirt and black slacks, probably stolen from some clothesline in Kuwait City, or maybe one of the stores that had been looted by the Iraqis before they left.

He had a beautiful set of teeth. I could tell that much when I was helping him to wash his mouth back at the docks. I would find out later that he had a nice smile, but the only expression I got out of him that first day other than a worried look, was a sort of bashful closed mouth grin whenever something happened that we both found amusing... like when Juarez tripped getting out of his jeep and the Spanish television crew caught it on tape.

Unfortunately Juarez saw the kid smirk, and made a mental note to deal with him later.

There was nothing emaciated about Ali. His legs were muscular and formed a nice set of ass cheeks that were rock hard. I knew this because I had scraped them for him. He had a nice chest too, rounded and high with nipples that jutted out handsomely beneath a skin tight T-shirt... I would find out later. His belly stuck out and rounded down to his crotch. The Iraqi doctor who had delivered him had given him an outie navel that sort of drew your attention until you happened to remember there was something to look at even further south.

Of course, up until this time I had only seen his reproductive equipment covered with a thick slime of oil, but what I'd seen, until a couple of the guys in Juarez's squad had snickered at him and he'd modestly grabbed my shirt and covered himself, had looked decent. It had also looked unusual, but I couldn't quite pin down why and didn't until much later, but he would make a decent basket in the crotch of a worn pair of blue jeans.

A couple of miles after we saw the television crew we scored a lift from a supply truck that was headed back to Kuwait City empty. I cupped my hands together and hoisted Ali up onto the high platform. As I grabbed hold of the side of the box to pull myself up, I was surprised to feel the kid grab me and help me onto the vehicle. I nodded my thanks to him and he nodded back. I guessed that he felt safer the farther he went with me. Either that, or the Iraqi's had done a seminar on the Stockholm Syndrome and he was practising what they had preached... but I doubted they'd had that much training.

Anyway, we sat on opposite sides of the truck and sort of looked at each other as the miles flew past. At one point he felt something in his eye and raised a dirty little finger to pick delicately at the foreign object. The incongruity of this struck me as funny and I began to laugh. He looked puzzled for a moment until he looked at his oil-stained body and caught on, then he smirked again and tried not to laugh.

I guess he was going through some pretty rough times. He knew that he should have been dead at least three times that day. I'm not saying that my arrival saved his life, but it certainly added some major complications to it. His country was defeated and so was he. He could have martyred himself on the docks or the battlefield, but instead he was enjoying a moment of levity with a man he should have killed earlier in the day.

Of course, I was just as happy that he hadn't and I was going over in my own mind a slow-motion replay of the events and wondering what might have happened if any of the plays had gone another way.

He pulled his legs up almost under his chin and the crotch of my oversized jockeys fell to one side revealing his penis and half of his scrotum. I looked... well sure I did. I told you already that he was a good-looking kid. But then I remembered how he had reacted earlier on the docks like he had been humiliated when I'd cut off his clothes, so I said, "Ali, your pecker is hanging out," to get his attention and then I motioned towards his privates.

Well he looked at me kind of funny for a couple of seconds then he covered himself, but he didn't do it in a hurry, if you know what I mean, and all the while he didn't stop looking at me and he could see I was watching him too. I felt at the time that he had probably rationalized his predicament and was having trouble dealing with the facts of his new situation. He probably had more questions than I would have had answers for. I know I would have if the situation had been reversed. Yesterday he had been one of the conquerors of Kuwait. He had been in control. He had been in power. His government had held off the combined forces of the world's armies who seemed to be throwing everything in their arsenals at them, and still they were dug in and defending what they had taken.

Today, he was my prisoner. Nothing was the same. His life was in my hands. Compared to these changes, the fact that some guy from New York had managed to glaum his jewels was evidently not particularly important.

Of course there could have been another reason he didn't hurry to cover himself. He might have detected my interest in him and been using his body to tempt me into a dalliance. I dwelt on that possibility as I watched him sitting there and managed to spend the rest of the trip into Kuwait City fantasizing about it. He had his head buried in his arms and his arms wrapped around his knees, but from time to time he would look up and glance around him. Invariably our eyes would meet and I would feel him trying to figure me out. But I didn't have a hard time out-staring him and he would lower his head back onto his arms whenever he couldn't deal with it anymore.

Getting that ride in the back of the truck was probably where I stopped thinking of Ali as my prisoner and started to consider him as a companion... and one who was having a pretty lousy day.

The truck driver flagged down a jeep with a red crescent on it. I hopped down and lifted Ali to the pavement, thanking the driver for the lift and then dropping an arm over Ali's shoulder and guiding him to the medics.

The best advice the medics had was for us to both get a bath and use a mild detergent to scrub ourselves. They didn't have time to hang around and show us how... they were due up north... but they did direct us to a part of the city where there was a good chance that the water was still on and we trudged away to find it.

On the way I did a little looting of my own at a men's wear shop and a grocery store. But I left a note in each place with my name on it and a list of the things I had borrowed. The government eventually paid for the things I took that day, but they didn't get a discount. They're still trying to sue me to get the money back.

We found a house where the water still seemed to be working and both of us stripped and I did a laundry. Then we found the bathroom and I showed Ali what the medics had told me to do by setting to work on his chest and shoulders. Then I washed his hair and face a couple of times. I turned him into the stream of water flowing from the shower head and was surprised when I felt his oily seven inch erection slap against my leg.

Well, needless to say this started me growing a bit and by the time I had finished washing his back we were both hanging heavy. I told him I thought it was a good idea to get a stiffy since we still had to scrub them and we didn't want to leave any oil in the folds of skin. I started on my own and he watched throwing cupped handsful of water onto me as I cleaned off my pecker. I finished myself and handed him the sponge, but he didn't seem to want to take it. He was still pretty oily down there and I didn't understand his reticence to clean it off. His cock was standing straight out from his body, and when I say straight I mean absolutely straight. I could see that his nuts had tightened to the point that they had almost been sucked back up inside him.

I figured the problem was still that embarrassment thing, so I make a move to get out of the tub, only this just seems to bother him and he grabs my arm. I still can't figure out what's wrong, so he takes my hand and moves it to his cock. He puts the sponge in my other hand and it's pretty obvious that he wants me to wash the thing for him.

Well, I'm game, of course, and I sort of squat down there in front of him and set to work with the sponge while he pours water on it from time to time. Well, I'm stroking it pretty good for him as I clean it and it's not long before he stops watering the thing. I feel it pulsing a bit in my hand and before I've got a chance to stand up straight and get out of the way, I'm wearing about nine hundred million sperm cells that ain't never going to fertilize nothing.

Well Ali has two looks on his face about the same time then. There's that stupid look we all get when we come off, of course, but then there's also a look of panic when he realizes that he has just creamed all over me, his captor. I figure there's just one thing for me to do, so I catch a little bit of the stuff on the tip of my finger and lick it off. I roll it around on my tongue a little before I swallow it and announce in my best impersonation of a wine connoisseur, "A little oily, but it has a nice full body."

That's when he wrapped his arms around me and started to cry. I held him and stroked his head and hair, knowing it was wrong, and yet feeling that nothing in my life up to now had ever been so right.

After a while I finished scrubbing him. Then we filled the tub with water and I threw in some of the skin softeners and bath beads I had liberated from the grocery store. As Ali floated in the lukewarm water he held my hand. I realized that it was the same hand that had slipped through my finger tips as he was swept into the Gulf. I felt the long fingers relax in mine and casually wander around my palm, and I know that I don't want those fingers to ever slip away from me again. I don't know if he felt any of this, but his face looks relaxed and happy for the first time that day, and I know that it's okay for him now... his war is over. He has transferred the responsibility for his future to someone else... someone he trusts with his life... and then I realize that that someone is me.

The electricity was not working in that part of the city and when it began to get dark I lit some candles I'd scored from the grocery store.

As Ali is getting out of the tub I see a small oil slick has formed and it's pretty obvious that we've missed a very important orifice. I'm not sure how much oil the kid has up his ass, but I know for sure that it won't come out without a little help. That's why I grabbed an enema bag from the pharmaceutical section of the grocery store. The medics had told me that I might need one. I had hoped that they were wrong, but I guess that stuff got in everywhere.

Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, so I sit Ali on the toilet and leave the room. A couple of minutes later I hear the flush and go back in. The kid has a worried look on his face. I show him the enema bag and try to demonstrate how it works, but he has already read the instructions that came with the thing and knows what's going to happen. Resignedly he gets into the tub as I fill the bag with the solution and jury-rig it to the shower curtain rod.

Ali offered me his ass with the same trust he showed when he offered me his genitals. I tried not to hurt him as I inserted the tip up inside him, but he was very tight. I wondered how the oil had managed to get in when I could not. I took the tip of the tube away and tried to loosen him up a little with my finger. Well, that did the trick and before I knew what had happened he had a pretty decent hold on my left middle digit. I had lost it up to the second joint. I almost wished that it was my cock inside him, until I remembered what else was up there.

I fucked him with my finger awhile to loosen him and then I pulled the switch. The little bugger was almost too fast for me, but I got the tip of the thing started and, when he relaxed for a split second, I drove it home.

I let him get used to the feel of the thing inside him for a few minutes while I reached around front and held him reassuringly. Then, as the sun set outside our bathroom window, I released the clamp from the tube a little and the water began to trickle into him.

He looked at me with a funny mixture of concern and pleasure as he felt his abdomen swell and I removed the clamp. The solution began to fill him. His stomach was starting to distend and he moaned, but not quite in agony. My hand was still around front and I felt his tummy tighten and swell and a freaky sort of pleasure shot through me and into my groin as I realized that he actually liked what I was doing to him and it was giving me quite a charge too. We were both stiff again and I reached up and squeezed the bag until it emptied.

Ali was making a lot of noise by now, but none of it was intelligible. I quickly removed the tube and replaced it with my finger once more. His poor little belly was bloated and tight. His outie looked like it might blow off with the pressure, but I didn't let him dump. I massaged him all around and felt the curve of his belly right down to his pubic hair. His cock was rigid now and threatening another eruption, but I didn't care. I reached up and pinched his nipples both of which were sticking out and hard as though little pieces of gravel had found their way inside.

When I thought that he could take no more I lifted him by the finger I had up his ass and guided him to the toilet. As he settled onto it the pressure blew my finger out of his hole and I washed up as he relieved himself. Then I left him alone again until I heard the toilet flush.

I opened the door and found the one thing I really hadn't expected to find. Ali was mixing up another bag of douche. I was a little concerned that he might have plans to use it on me, but he hopped back into the tub and offered me the tube and his ass. He was still rock hard and to tell you the truth, so was I.

By now it was dark outside and the only illumination we had came from the candles. They lent a romantic feeling to our second bout with the enema bag. When I had Ali refilled and my finger once more up his butt we did a sort of a slow dance there in the tub while I massaged him again to make sure that we worked the oil free from his intestines.

I felt his hand grasp mine and direct it down through his pubic hair to his stiff young cock. I wrapped my fingers around it and he started me stroking it while he stood there with all that water still inside him and my finger up his ass holding it in. Then I feel fingers wrapping around my own John Thomas and this surprises me a little... but not all that much, I guess. He's massaging me and he's all set to blow in both directions, but I don't want that to happen. I have other plans for him... now that I know what he likes. Well, he'd already blown his load once that night and I'd been walking behind him most of the day watching that beautiful ass swinging in front of me, and now I have his cock in my hand and he's got mine in his and, well... you can imagine what I felt like... and the candle light wasn't helping me any, either.

I pulled him over to the toilet again and let him get rid of the douche water, but this time I didn't leave the room. I didn't want him touching that cock of his and coming off without me.

While he cleaned himself up I washed the tub out and set the bathroom right. I've never been one of those pigs that leaves their mess for somebody else to look after. I packed the enema bag into the knapsack. Ali looked a little disappointed, but I smiled at him reassuringly and handed him a candle.

"C'mon, kid," I said. "Let's find us a bedroom. Then we'll look for a kitchen."

Ali led the way to the bedroom and I found myself wondering if he'd understood my words or my intentions. He still hadn't said a word to me in English. The only thing I'd heard from him that day, other than his diatribe against the U.S., in Arabic, had been a few moans of pleasure in the bath tub. I had done all of the talking since the time I'd fished him out of the Gulf.

He stopped outside the bedroom door and turned to face me. In the light of the two candles we carried his eyes had become two black pools... okay, so they looked like pools of oil, and I'd definitely seen enough oil to last me for a while... but I looked into them and felt myself surrendering to him. That seemed only fair since he had surrendered to me already, so I leaned down and kissed him. That's what he had wanted. I could tell by the way he responded, pressing himself hard up against me and almost bayoneting me with that seven inch pecker of his. It was still waiting to come off and so was mine, but we shared a moment of affection there in the hallway before I lifted him into my arms and carried him to the bed that somebody had left in a hurry last August the second.

I ate him up with my eyes as he waited for me to take him. His dark young body was one of the most perfect I had ever seen and I wanted him more than I have ever wanted anyone. I knew it was wrong... well sure I did. I knew that it would probably end tragically... there was no other way for it to end. But there and then, it didn't matter. We had something to share and I lifted one of his feet to my lips and I kissed it. He had walked all those miles that day barefoot and had not complained. I could understand why as I kissed him. The soles of his feet were thick. There wasn't much callus, just thick pads that softened his footfalls.

I sucked his big toe for a couple of seconds, just so he would know that I would do it. Then I worked my way up past his ankle to his calf, kissing and lightly biting at the muscle until I got to the knee, then along the inner thigh until his testicles brushed my cheek.

I kissed them and opened his legs further to reveal his ass again. I shoved my tongue into it and felt him resist a moment before allowing me to enter him. He moaned as I fucked him with it and he writhed on the bed pushing against me to admit more. He had grabbed his cock again and was beginning to work it once more, so I pulled his hand away from it and brought my head away from his ass. I swallowed all seven inches and felt an almost immediate explosion as he shot a couple of ounces of semen down my throat.

The score was now two field goals to nothing for him.

I lifted off his throbbing cock and prepared to go for a touchdown. It was then that I realized that I hadn't thought to pick up any lubricant when I'd gone shopping. There was no way I would be able to enter him without it either. Ali had himself a tight little ass. I looked around the bedroom then I went back to the bathroom and checked the medicine cabinet. There was nothing I could use. I headed for the kitchen and found some salad oil on a shelf. I figured I should taste it to make sure it didn't have vinegar in it. I had removed most of Ali's natural protection with the enemas. I didn't want to burn his asshole off with acid. The salad oil was okay.

It was then that I remembered that I had left my gun outside the bathroom door. It was loaded too. I kicked myself for having been so careless. Ali was still, after all, my prisoner and here I was standing naked in the middle of some Kuwaiti family's kitchen while my prisoner was half a house away and probably already had my gun. I hurried back to the rear of the house and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the gun sitting right where I left it.

By the time I returned to him Ali had begun to wonder if I was going to come back and finish what we had started. Already he was hard again... or maybe he'd never come down after he'd come off... anyhow, I was in serious peril of falling behind by yet three more points when I finally worked my way back into his arms and up into his ass.

It's a fact that man is the only animal who makes love face to face as equals. I thought of that as I slid into Ali and paused to let him get used to the biggest thing he'd had in him so far. Then when he nodded to me, and began breathing regularly again, I started moving in and out of him while he pinched his left tit with his left hand and matched my rhythm within him with his right hand as he worked himself to climax again.

We both shot together, me within him, him all over his chest and the fingers that still pinched his lovely young nipple.

I was exhausted and laid there like a beached whale beside him as he kissed me. I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke a little while later. Ali was still in bed beside me, but he was sitting up and talking very excitedly to the Iraqi soldier who was holding my own gun a few inches away from my right temple.

Here, let me freshen up our drinks and I'll be right back...

THE BIG ONION AND OTHER STUFF

Where was I? Oh, yah, I'm in bed with the best looking little commando I've ever had the good fortune to capture... well, let's face it, he was the only one I'd ever captured... but that doesn't make him any less good-looking... and all of a sudden I'm looking down the barrel of my own gun. Right about then I figured the Kuwaiti family, whose house we were in, is going to have to order more sheets for their bed, cause I feel like I'm gonna dump, but Ali is talking a mile a minute in Arabic and the guy is listening to him.

Now I can see Ali and I can see the gun, but I can't see the face of the guy who's holding it because there's a couple of flashlights shining from behind him. That leads me to the correct conclusion that he has a couple of buddies with him. This is the reason I haven't grabbed the gun from the guy. I am definitely out-numbered and I have to assume that they all have their own weapons as well as having mine.

I've already told you that I can only read a few words of Arabic, but as far as speaking it... well, I couldn't to save my life... which at that point is about what I figured I would have to do in order to get out of there. As for understanding Arabic... naw, I couldn't catch a word of the conversation between Ali and the guy with my gun.

I had a feeling, though, that Ali was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself, so I decided to lie there like a good boy and let him. Well, what other option did I have? I mean, the fact that I was still alive told me that there was some disagreement about killing me. I kept watching Ali. He was talking a mile a minute sitting there beside me in the bed as bare balls naked as the day he was born, but somehow demanding respect and haranguing the guy with the gun. I felt little flecks of his spittle land on my bare stomach and mingle with the sweat I was pumping out.

The guy with the gun was contemptuous of Ali and I. It was obvious to him and the others with him, that Ali and I had been caught... collaborating, to coin a phrase. Although that sort of thing was common in Arab countries, where a woman can't be touched until her wedding night, it was never advertised or promoted as a way of life, like we do in the States, and anybody who was caught doing it was in for a rough time.

I supposed that was what they had been discussing just before the gunman pulled the gun away from my head and aimed it at Ali. I caught my breath and so did Ali, but then he got all serene like and quiet and looked right at the guy and gave him one last shot. He said something to him that started out real quiet... then he spits out the last word and sticks out his chest to sort of give the guy a better target to shoot at.

Of course I'm thinking I should do something, but there's not a whole lot more that I can do than I've already done. You've got to remember those other two guys behind our friend with my gun. I don't know what weapons they're sporting. So while Ali's preparing himself to take my bullet, I'm sort of laying there and admiring the guy who has faced death so many times and has not once pleaded for mercy. From the looks of it he almost seems to have been looking for it. I could understand him not begging me for mercy, him not speaking English and all, but from what I've seen of the conversation, or should I say argument he's just had with one of his own allies, there has been no pleading involved.

I think then, that I'm beginning to understand the deal. I know now why Ali was out on the docks that morning. He wasn't just there for the ocean breezes. And he wasn't there because he had decided to finish what the saboteurs who had done the initial damage couldn't bring themselves to do. He had been ordered to go out there and blow the oil. He was not expected back, nor was he expecting to be back in the city.

Usually a suicide mission is a voluntary thing. Sometimes the volunteer is a super patriot who will do anything for his country, but most often the guy who goes is somebody who would probably do it anyway.

I've already mentioned that reaming each other's butts is a common thing for the boys to do over there while they're waiting for their wife. But some of them get to liking it, and for them, becoming a man isn't quite so easy. If word gets out it means disgrace. With disgrace comes low self esteem and a whole lot of suicides that somehow look like accidents.

But I've got my doubts about something. Ali isn't like that and I'm beginning to realize why when the unthinkable happens.

The guy pulled the trigger.

I decided I'd waited long enough. I'd already disabled my gun now I used the butt end of it to disable the guy who held it. Ali didn't see any of this. His eyes were closed. He felt the bed rock a bit and opened them again. The room was dark. I was still beside him. His murderer was on the floor in a heap and two flashlight beams were racing down the hall and out into the desert night. Obviously they were unarmed or just plain scared after what they'd seen.

I grinned at Ali. He didn't seem to know what to do. But I knew that what he had done already was enough to thank me for having saved his life. We were on an equal footing now, and I knew that equal, in this case, was probably an understatement. I re-lit the candles and regarded our sleeping enemy.

"Do you suppose this guy's into bondage?" I asked. Ali returned my smile as he saw the gleam in my eye. It wasn't just a reflection from the candle either.

We dragged him to the kitchen where Ali took the largest knife he could find and cut away the guy's clothing, while I reassembled the firing mechanism of my gun. I couldn't help thinking that I had disabled my gun to keep Ali from killing me, but, in doing so, I'd managed to save him. I wondered if I would be able to keep on doing that for a kid who seemed to want to die.

Anyway we found some nice soft rope in the garage and by the time Mohammed woke up we had him tied up pretty good. I don't like to brag, but I'd seen some graphics files on my computer that I'd downloaded from a board in Boston, and they showed some guys who'd been done up in bondage. At the time, I'd just figured they were kinky and I got my rocks off a couple of times looking at them. I never figured I would actually get a chance to practise what I'd seen.

Mohammed was a little larger than Ali and a whole lot hairier. He looked like he could use a shave... so we gave him one. But I don't think he appreciated where we shaved him, especially when we nicked him a bit. I found some after shave and Ali slapped it on him, but I don't think it really helped all that much. He did, however, smell a little better.

That's when he started cursing us... in English. Well, a lot of the words were English, but most of them weren't fit for polite company, so we washed his mouth out with soap and I told him that if he didn't watch his language we would rinse it with piss. I stood above him fingering my pecker and sort of aiming it. Ali joined me and let a stream go, all over the bar of soap. I imagine some of it made it's way in though. I tried to stop him, but of course I only ended up redirecting him. He couldn't stop once he got started... well, who can? His stream of piss hit the guy's nose and eyes and streaked through his hair before I managed to point Ali away. I tried not to be too harsh with him. After all I had said what might happen to the guy in English. Ali obviously misunderstood my intention when I stood over him and he figured I was just having a hard time getting started.

I can't say I blame the kid for going ahead and pissing on the guy like that. After all, the guy had, for all intents and purposes, just shot Ali dead through the heart.

Mohammed managed to spit the bar of soap across the room. He gagged and spit for a while and then got down to a serious harangue of Ali in Arabic. Ali had pinched off his pecker's flow and was listening to the guy with a furrowed brow. He seemed to be hurt by what the guy said, or maybe he was just anxious about having started to piss and not being able to finish. I couldn't tell, but when Mohammed wouldn't stop and began yelling again, Ali looked at me with a pained look on his face. I rested my hand on his naked shoulder and guided him to the right side of Mohammed's head. I took the other side and we both drowned the bastard.

How's your drink, by the way? A little warm? Oh, all right, where was I?

Mohammed was an unreliable urinal. We got some down his throat, but most of it he managed to spit out or avoid altogether. Well that meant that we had to mop the floor. I resisted the urge to do it with Mohammed's hair. For one thing, his hair was almost as oily as Ali's had been the day before when I'd fished him out of the Gulf.

But Mohammed was lying there in the piss and soap suds and sort of getting in our way, so we dragged him a little ways across the room and he starts screaming again. Well, we hadn't thought that a short little trip like that would have burned him the way that it did and we apologized to him, but he didn't seem to think that we meant it and got a little abusive again. So I found the soap and shoved it up his ass. He hadn't been expecting it and was pretty loose back there, a little too loose I thought as the soap disappeared up inside him. I recalled how he had seemed to accuse Ali of being a slut and an infidel for being found in bed with me and I tapped Ali's arm and demonstrated to him that his buddy seemed to be excavated a little too large to be a virgin. Ali smiled at me for the first time as he too marvelled at how easily the soap had disappeared. It didn't stay gone long, though. Mohammed fired it back out, only it wasn't the same color it had been.

Well, this got us thinking that Mohammed could probably use an enema. We both came up with the idea at about the same time and I handed Ali the candle that was closest to us and pointed him to the hall that led to our bedroom. He was back in a flash with my knapsack.

Well, by then I was thinking some more about the pictures I had seen from that Boston Board. I knew that Mohammed was unhappy on the floor, but I had no idea how to make a sling. I had never seen one up close... so we improvised.

The Kuwaiti whose house we were using had a pretty good workshop in his garage. He had a little bit of everything including eye-bolts and chain and a damned good portable drill that hadn't completely lost its charge. It had enough juice for me to attach four of those oversized eye-bolts to the ceiling beams that ran through the house. We decided that the living room in the front of the house would probably be the best spot to string him up, so we worked quickly and half an hour later we showed Mohammed what we had done for him. He was not impressed. He started telling us what he thought of it, the war, us and our ancestors and we decided that we'd heard enough. I fashioned a tea towel into a gag and things quieted a little.

I could tell, though, that his reaction had disappointed Ali, so after we had secured our prisoner in the sling, I led Ali to the refrigerator and let him decide what we should use to clean out Mohammed. It was hard to contain my mirth as we filled the bag with the warm fizzy cola, but as I saw it, Mohammed was going to have an even more difficult time containing himself and if we were going to do a good job the cola would have to stay inside him. We needed a dam.

We used an onion. It was a smallish Spanish onion, but large by cooking onion standards. It required some effort to get it inserted especially since our captive was not really anxious to have it up there. I think the head of the enema tube probably pinched when we squeezed it past the onion, but neither Ali nor I felt a thing. I gave Ali the honor of releasing the clamp. Then we watched Mohammed fill up for a while.

He went through a variety of expressions, none of which could be described as happiness as the carbonation did its carbonating and the onion brought tears to his eyes... but not in the usual way.

We didn't wait around to watch what happened to the Kuwaiti family's living room. We had already dallied there too long. There had been at least two others with Mohammed and they had fled. But they knew where their sergeant was and we had no doubt that they had not left for Iraq without him.

We grabbed a few tins of food from the kitchen shelves and pulled on fresh clothes. The desert air did not take long to dry the washing I had done a laundry in the Kuwaiti family's laundry room. I tried to throw out the stained jockeys I had loaned Ali, but he retrieved them and slipped them back on. I tossed him the bag I had brought from the men's store. It contained a few flowing white robes one of which he pulled on quickly... I had picked out a few because when we stole them Ali was coated with oil and couldn't try any on, consequently the rest of them were too large for him. These we stuffed into my knapsack with the food. I figured if nothing else, they might prove useful as blankets.

In his new white robes Ali could have passed for a Kuwaiti. I was tempted to turn him loose and let him take his chances, but to tell you the truth, I didn't particularly care for his chances. There were still Iraqi soldiers around trying to find their way out of the city, and there was also the possibility that he might have offended some Kuwaitis who might remember him when they returned. I found out later that I would not have been able to get rid of him even if I had wanted to. Ali was determined to stick to me like glue and it wasn't just for self-preservation either.

The Iraqi sergeant was distended and in agony when we looked in on him before we left. But there wasn't much we could do for him. He would have to work things out for himself. It was a toss up whether or not our torture would kill him before he managed to blow the onion out but he should have thought of the consequences before he'd aimed my gun at my buddy, Ali... and pulled the trigger.

I didn't see hate in Ali's eyes when he looked at the man who'd killed him... twice, I would find out later. Sure the kid had pissed on him when he was down, but, hey, the guy had brought it on himself. The war was over. It had been over when he'd sent Ali to do the job that morning. Everybody else was already on their way back to Iraq. Shit, on our way back into town the day before we had passed countless cars that had broken down in the desert. They had been filled with stuff that the Iraqi army was taking home with them before the desert and their lack of driving skills had forced them to abandon the idea.

There was only one reason for the guy to still be in Kuwait. He was looking for the big score. And he'd kept a bunch of expendable kids around to go and create a diversion for him while he sat in his rat hole waiting for the chance to open up the First National Bank of Kuwait. No, I didn't see hate in Ali's eyes, only a realization. But I saw hate in the eyes of the man in the sling who had ordered Ali to go to the docks and ignite the oil after his first volunteer failed to and fucked off.

I put my hand on Ali's shoulder and led him away from the room, his sergeant, the war and Iraq and I hoped it would be forever.

He stepped in front of me as we left the house, assuming his P.O.W. position. I called his name and he turned and waited. I caught him up and from that point on we walked together, side by side. Well, after all we had each saved the other's life, he had not shown any desire to escape, and besides, with those long flowing robes he was wearing, I couldn't see his ass anymore.

It was still dark. We hadn't slept more than an hour at the most. I was tired and I knew Ali was too. We plodded along through streets that were too quiet, even for this hour of the day. All we were looking for was another place to sleep, but in the darkness it was harder to tell which houses were occupied. I was having a hard enough time deciding where to spend the rest of the night. What I didn't need to find was another bunch of Iraqis and actually, I didn't find them. They found us.

It was Ali who first became aware of their presence. He heard something behind us and reached over to put a cautionary left hand on my stomach. But there was this difference in heights and I thought he was going for my crotch. I was about to tell him, "Not now... not here..." when I heard them too. We were walking past a walled property at the time. When we came to the gate that opened into a small front yard I tried it and found it open. So we walked in there like we owned the place and found a planter big enough to hide behind. We waited. In the still desert night we could hear them whispering to each other on the other side of the wall. We watched the gate.

After what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes I saw something slide under the gate. It was quickly followed by something else. Both things rattled on the patio stones that covered the small courtyard. Then a much larger something slid under the gate. It was definitely a rifle. We watched the gate open far enough to admit a hand and the forearm it was attached to. The hand held a piece of white cloth. Whoever these guys were, they were surrendering to me. I ordered them to step inside and remain in the middle of the compound. I was surprised to hear Ali bark a command in Arabic.

The gate opened slowly and one by one they stepped through it. There were three of them. They all had their hands on top of their heads like they were holding their hats on, except they didn't have hats. I hadn't told them to put their hands up. Evidently Ali had added that. One of them was trying to speak English. "Please, Joe, us go with you?" Well, it was sort of English.

"Are there any others from your squad that didn't turn themselves in?" I asked.

"Please, Joe, us go with you?"

I looked at Ali whose face was not visible in the moonlight, but his teeth were. He switched on a flashlight and directed the beam at the group of young soldiers. They were still teenagers, for Chrissakes. Ali barked again and smiled at me as the three young men pulled their hands reluctantly from their heads and started removing their uniforms. They got down to their boxers and stopped. Ali barked again and the boxers dropped too. The flashlight played on their bodies. The boys were all holding their hands in front of themselves. Ali sang out again and the three boy soldiers snapped to attention their hands at their sides. Ali's flashlight examined each of them for me. Then he called out another order and they spun around to face the other direction. Again the flashlight revealed them one by one.

Ali turned to me and grinned again. He said something quietly to me in Arabic that I suspected at the time and later found out was "See anything you like?" He said it more for their benefit than for mine. He focused on each bum in the line-up for a few seconds then handed me the flashlight and went over to examine the clothing and pick up the guns. I found myself shining the flashlight on Ali's posterior and he noticed this. He grinned at me and wiggled his bum a little before ordering the three soldiers to about face once more. They had gone back to holding their genitals and he growled an order at them. Their hands found their pant seams again, or at least the spot where their pant seams would have been if they'd been wearing any pants. Then he examined each of them a little more closely and told them to get dressed. He trotted back to me with the guns and a wrinkled up nose that made it more than obvious as he shook his head that they hadn't smelled any better close up than they had looked like they might from a distance and I should stick with him.

So, now I had three prisoners to worry about too. It was impossible for me to think of Ali as my prisoner. I now looked on him more as an aide... who am I trying to kid? He was my lover by then. We had been through so much together that it was almost impossible to believe that I hadn't known him twenty-four hours before.

I slumped down into the lounge chair that was one of many scattered around the patio. When the sun woke me at six o'clock I found Ali curled up beside me with his head on my chest in the chair and our five prisoners snoring on the opposite side of the compound. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, blinked again and counted them once more. One, two, three, four, five...

I realized then that I was probably the worst man for the job I was supposed to be doing. I could barely stay awake in the desert air and as far as my powers of observation were concerned, well... I had somehow managed to capture two more Iraqis without realizing it.

I eased myself out of the chair and managed not to waken Ali. I crept across the compound and looked at them. I recognized the three that had come in and done the striptease the night before. They were huddled together. A little ways from them an older corporal with a mustache lay on his side with drool staining the shirt sleeve of the arm he was using for a pillow. Another young private slept a few feet from him and twitched fitfully through a nightmare. I went to the gate to get my bearings. It was barred from the inside. I couldn't remember having done that. I lifted the bar and swung the gate open. It squeaked a little and I noticed some movement along the wall to my right. There were three more Iraqis camped outside waiting to come in... I imagined they were as hungry as I was. I could imagine how hungry Ali was. He hadn't eaten at all the day before, at least after I'd met up with him, and I'd given him two enemas.

He joined me sleepily at the gate and collected the Iraqis' weapons. I figured that I had found my second in command and he appeared to know what he was doing. I decided to let him do it. He ordered them up against the wall and we frisked them. By now we were both getting a little sick of looking at shitty Iraqi assholes. And besides, we were about to go to breakfast.

By the time we'd marched them downtown four more had fallen in. None of the restaurants had reopened, so we found one and reopened it. The gas wasn't on but the water was, there was a grill that we could convert to a barbecue and the grocery store I had stopped at the day before was just across the street. Ali and I went shopping after sternly warning our platoon to clean the place up, not to try to escape... and not to let anybody else join them until we got back. Somehow I felt more like the captive than the captor, by now.

Ali and I took shopping carts and went off in different directions. I went for the canned goods. He headed for the pharmaceuticals.

Our P.O.W.'s found a whole cupboard full of white uniforms in the back of the restaurant. By the time we got back the restaurant was ship-shape, there wasn't an Iraqi uniform in sight, there was water boiling on the grill and a couple of G.I.'s had parked their jeep outside and were strolling in for breakfast. Ali shrugged and went and took their orders while I counted my fourteen prisoners and wondered what they were burning to heat the water. It turned out to be Iraqi military uniforms. We threw the charcoal on top and hoped no one would notice the smell.

Word spread quickly that there was a restaurant open in the middle of town and the army fought their way in for a decent meal. We kept the shopping carts going back and forth across the street all morning. We had to feed ourselves on the fly, but we raked in over five hundred dollars half of which we divided between the grocery store and the restaurant cash registers. The rest we kept in my knapsack.

We were getting ready to leave when the lunch crowd started to arrive. Ali looked at me rather plaintively and I nodded. By now there was nothing I could refuse him. But I was bushed. I left the restaurant in his capable hands and went out back to lie down.

Along about four o'clock he joined me and brought me a hamburger he had prepared for me. He fed it to me and smiled when I seemed to enjoy it. Between bites he wiped my face for me and when I had finished he kissed me for dessert.

We were in a little office in the back of the restaurant behind what would have been the freezer if the electricity had still been on. It had a leather couch that I had turned into a bed. Ali locked the door and turned me into his bed. He slipped quickly out of his robes and my shorts and was once again buck-naked. With only a little more trouble he had my pants and shorts down around my knees. He unbuttoned my shirt as he lowered himself onto me. I detected the odor of shortening and felt its cool soothing lubrication where his hot asshole surrounded my cock. I pulled him down and kissed him again. Then I groaned with ecstasy as he began raising and lowering himself on my shaft. It wasn't long before we both got a stupid look on our faces and his cock blew all over my face and chest while mine released within him. He cleaned me off with table napkins and hurried to the washroom in the corner of the office to clean himself.

While he was gone there was a knock on the door and one of the Iraqis who could speak a little English called in to me.

"We make dinner now?"

"Yes, of course," I answered. Then Ali was back with me and sleeping on top of me until it was time to start waiting tables for the soldiers who would come back for dinner when the hot desert sun went down.

He dressed me in a set of the long flowing white robes when we got up and I have to admit that I felt a little like Lawrence of Arabia standing there while he made the precise adjustments that were needed to satisfy him. When I made my appearance in the restaurant all twenty waiters oohed and aahed and spontaneous applause broke out.

My platoon was turning into a battalion. When they started planning the breakfast menu I knew I definitely had to put my foot down. If we stayed there until morning there probably wouldn't be any room for the customers. I picked out the highest ranking officer in the restaurant and sat down at his table.

"Excuse me, Colonel," I began. "I've got a little problem..."

The Colonel was a reservist like me. He was an engineer by training, and as it turned out, a hell of a nice guy. I introduced myself and told him that I had been accumulating a group of Iraqi prisoners all day, but I had been unable to find anywhere to drop them. Ali hovered at my shoulder looking concerned.

"To tell you the truth, soldiers," the Colonel answered nodding to Ali as well, "I can't help you much on that score. Most of the P.O.W.'s are being rounded up and moved back to the Saudi side. We didn't find many though. I think at last count we had half a dozen. How many have you got?"

I looked around me. "Twenty... last count..."

"Twenty-one," Ali corrected.

I looked at my aide. It hadn't struck me yet that he was speaking English, only that he was disagreing with me. I took it to mean that he was turning himself in as well.

"You mean that first guy?" I asked hoping he would catch my drift and realize I had no intentions of turning him in. "He got away last night, don't you remember?"

"No, I don't mean him," Ali answered relieving my feeling of foreboding. "There's another one at the back door."

That was when it struck me that Ali and I were communicating in English. I didn't have long to accustom myself to the idea though. A jeep was pulling up to the front door of the restaurant. Ali pointed it out to me. The driver was Juarez. He looked hungry.

"I'll go get the new guy taken care of, Joe," Ali said. "Maybe you should come and talk to him though."

Juarez was walking past the window when Ali disappeared. I excused myself and stood up. But the Colonel stopped me.

"Twenty-one?" he asked. "Where did you leave them?"

"They're all around you, Colonel. They're running the restaurant. C'mon out back when you finish and I'll fill you in."

I ducked out just as Juarez came in.

Look, I have to duck out to the kitchen and check on tonight's dinner. You are going to stay for dinner aren't you? You have to... oh, down the hall... first door on the right...

ALI'S REVENGE or NEVER MESS WITH A SMART-ASS IRAQI

You're in luck. It's Cous-cous tonight. I first had that back in Kuwait... as a matter of fact it was what the boys were pushing that night when Juarez found our place and came in. I guess that's where I left the story.

Ali was standing right by the door and I nearly bowled him over when I came through it. His eyes were real big and he looked at me kind of funny and a whole lot of pent up air blew out from between his lips when he saw that I had made it out of there before Juarez saw me. I guess he'd been holding his breath. He waited for me to pass so that he could go back to peeking out at Juarez and watching what he'd do, but I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him into the freezer. It was still a little cool in there, but it rapidly became even colder.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me you could speak English?"

He looked frightened. He also got very quiet.

"What's the matter?" I demanded. "Cat got your tongue?"

He looked at me and his eyes accused me of betraying him. I was doing the interrogating, but I felt it was myself who should be answering the questions. Like, why was I so angry with him? What had changed the relationship I had up until now had with the sweetest kid I had ever met on the face of the earth? Was it finding out that he could have communicated with me all this time? But we had been communicating beautifully up until I found out that he could speak English. What, I wondered, was it that had changed?

It was a shock when I realized the answer. It was me.

I felt like an asshole. I wanted to hold him and tell him I was sorry, but he looked so scared I knew he wouldn't let me. When I realized this I also knew that I had lost something I would probably never deserve to get back from him again, his trust. This was probably hardest to accept. I sank onto a pile of boxes and buried my face in my hands.

"At first I didn't tell you because I was scared." Ali's voice was quiet... almost apologetic. "I figured that I wouldn't have to answer a lot of questions if you didn't think you could talk to me. Then things changed and I didn't tell you because I didn't have to. I mean, we seemed to know the important stuff without saying anything...I thought it might be better if you didn't know. I mean, where I come from they give you a pretty hard time if you fall in love with another soldier. I just thought it might be better if we didn't say anything about it... ever."

"Oh, Ali, I'm sorry."

"That's okay, Joe."

"Larry."

"What?"

"Larry. My name is Larry." I guess Ali wasn't the only one who hadn't been communicating.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, why?"

"Oh... nothing. It's just that you look more like a Joe than a... Larry. Can I call you Joe?"

"Why don't you just call me a jerk?"

"Because you're not a jerk. You're a good guy... Larry. You're my... friend." None of this made me feel any better because I knew it shouldn't be true. "You have a nice ass."

I had to laugh a little when he said that. When I looked at him he didn't look frightened anymore. And I knew the real reason why he hadn't told me that he could speak English. Languages only complicate communication. They demanded answers that are too specific... too precise. They got in the way of the real truth, the truth I had felt when I'd felt Ali's fingers slipping through mine just before he'd plunged into the Gulf. If I'd waited for the specifics of the situation to be defined by some English scholar, Ali would now be sleeping with the fishes... belly-up, oily fishes.

How many potential lovers had I run into in bars back in the States who had destroyed the illusion so carefully presented by their appearance when they opened their mouths to reveal the depth of their intellects? There were some things we are better off not knowing. I supposed that Ali had a life full of these answers and wanted to avoid the questions that would undoubtedly trigger them.

"You can tell me anything you want me to know," I said finally. "But you don't have to tell me anything at all if you don't want to. It won't change our relationship a bit either way. I'm sorry I made that crack about your ass."

"You mean I don't have a nice ass?"

"Sure you do. I just shouldn't have said it. I probably shouldn't have said a lot of things..."

"I can't think of any..."

"I can..."

"I'd rather not talk about it... Joe."

"Yah, I've noticed. Tell me something, Ali... if that is your name..."

"Yah, it is. What do you want to know, Joe?"

"Who's ass did we stick that onion up last night?"

Ali exploded with laughter and I joined him. I guess that the tension had been pretty great because we couldn't stop laughing. The relief was just too sweet for either of us to give it up.

"Don't worry, Joe," he said when he could speak once more. "He wasn't anybody important. He had it coming to him, too. He really was an asshole."

Well, that set us off again. The freezer door opened and a young Iraqi with tired expression on his face asked us, in English, if we could keep it down. He had been trying to sleep.

We took him to the office out back and dressed him in a robe like we wore and gave him instructions for waiting on Juarez. It was a sure thing that Ali couldn't go out there again while he was in the restaurant, and neither could I.

"So, why did you wait until I was talking to the Colonel to start talking English?" I asked as we watched our new waiter stumble over to Juarez's table.

"When you told him you only had twenty prisoners I figured that meant that you weren't going to turn me in," he answered. "I also saw Juarez making a U-turn out front and I figured I might have to say something real quick. I wanted you to get used to the idea before he parked his jeep. When things surprise you, you have a habit of standing there with your mouth open."

I looked at him. He smiled at me.

"I do not," I said finally, realizing that my mouth had been open.

"See what I mean?" he answered.

"So, is there a number twenty-one?" I asked, looking behind us at the storeroom full of sleeping Iraqis.

Ali smirked. "You sent him out to wait on Juarez," he answered. Then he snorted, "Don't worry, boss. All us Arabs look alike."

"Do not," I answered.

"Do too," he said.

"I think I liked you better when you didn't speak English," I observed.

"That sounds like something a Larry would say."

"Does not."

"Does too."

"Am I ever gonna get the last word, now?"

"I doubt it."

"Shut up. Here comes the Colonel."

"Larry..." he mumbled as he returned to the freezer for a quick nap. It sounded like an accusation. It also sounded like the last word.

Colonel Roger Hadford was an unassuming man. He stood about five foot, six inches tall and looked more intelligent than physical. He looked around our dormitory and followed me to the little office at the back of the freezer. We talked there and he told me that they were unprepared for a large number of prisoners. He agreed with my assessment that it would probably be a good idea to move them out of Kuwait as quickly as possible. He told me that this war seemed to be on some sort of timetable.

After months of softening up the citizens of Baghdad, the viewing public were getting sick and tired of the air war with its smart bombs that took the viewer to whatever private hell they created when they hit their target, but didn't take them in. These sanitized views of the destruction of private property were just what television networks were after. The continuous replay of buildings being destroyed over and over again should have, they figured, appealed to the video game mentality of the viewer.

What they failed to realize was that the average video game was getting nastier than even the pictures coming out of the Middle East. In order to compete with the programmers, the war would have to start showing what happened in those buildings when one of the bombs actually went off. Since these pictures were impossible to get, the pressure was on to start a land war and the quicker the better.

That had happened two days before. There was some resistance of course, but for the most part the Iraqi's fled back to Baghdad. A few, like Onion Ass, stuck around to line their pockets with whatever they could find. But the majority of my prisoners were looking for one thing... out of Iraq.

The trouble with the land war was that the pictures weren't that good either. Technology had taken all of the blood and guts out of the war. The worst thing the cameras could find to record besides the oil spill and the burning oil wells, were the hundreds of barbecued Iraqi martyrs who had already met Allah. I couldn't find it in my heart to hate them for having been there. I couldn't glory in their destruction. Theirs had been a private hell. Not even their killers had been there. You see, it was a long distance war... reach out and crush someone. You really didn't have to be there unless you wanted pictures. In order to get a good shot of the destruction, the photographer had to be there when the bomb, the missile or the shell arrived. The trouble with that idea was... well, you could get killed.

The television cameras were looking for something new now. They wanted the triumphant return of the citizens of Kuwait, even though we all knew it was way too early yet. There was never any really quick way of finding where the mines had been buried... unless you didn't mind losing the odd limb, or citizen.

That was Hadford's job, sweeping the mines and disarming the booby traps. After talking to the man for a few minutes I was glad that he was the one responsible. He projected an aura of calm, and hadn't let a small thing like being surrounded by a virtual platoon of Iraqi soldiers in disguise, throw him. In fact, he commended me for keeping the lid on what might have been a pretty volatile situation by giving the men something to do. He advised me that he was placing me in command of the prisoners officially and would have orders drawn up when he returned to his headquarters. I didn't tell him that I had let my second in command look after most of the details and by the way, he too was an Iraqi.

He inquired if I could provide him with a translator to help him find out what my P.O.W.'s knew about the mine fields in the area. I told him I had just the man for the job.

When I asked him where I should take the prisoners he glanced out the office door and allowed that they seemed pretty happy right where they were and if we could see our way clear to providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner for one or two more days, he would try to round me up a truck to transport them, just as soon as we found out what they knew and received orders telling us where they should be taken.

I excused myself and went to find Ali to tell him that he would be seconded to Colonel Hadford for a while. I found him in the freezer with Twenty-one. They both had their robes up clutched in their teeth and their shorts down around their knees. They were both masturbating frantically. Between them on a pile of boxes sat a small dish of peaches.

"Lemme guess," I started. "Juarez ordered peaches and cream..." Ali nodded without missing a stroke. "...and we're all out of cream." Ali smiled as well as he could through his mouthful of robe and nodded again. "Very resourceful, men," I commended them. "Carry on... and see me in my office when you're done there, Ali." Twenty-one was starting to get a stupid look on his face. I saluted and closed the door. It had reconfirmed in my own mind that Ali and I really did a whole lot better without language.

Eventually Juarez left with a belly full of food, a little jism and a funny taste in his mouth. Colonel Hadford left too after counting the prisoners, all twenty-four of them, and asking Ali if he would screen them to find out if any of them knew anything about the Iraqi mine fields. He asked me if I needed a squad of soldiers to back me up, and for a moment there was a worried look on Ali's face. I got the message. The fewer, the better... I thanked Colonel Hadford but told him that we hadn't had any problems so far and it might be a better idea to keep things the way they were. He agreed with me and added that there seemed to be enough G.I.'s hanging around eating anyway. I could probably get a squad together just by offering to pick up their tabs for them. I took the hint and picked up the Colonel's tab. Hey, it never hurts to polish the brass!

The night shift was just coming on, so after the Colonel left we put Twenty-one in charge and hiked back over to the house where we'd left Mohammed. Things were pretty quiet there. We inched our way in through the rear entrance and worked our way through to the front of the house. The sling was empty. There was shit and cola everywhere, but surprisingly it didn't smell all that bad.

"Try to find the onion," I urged.

Ali looked at me and his face registered distaste in the beam of my flashlight. "Why?" he grimaced.

"I want to know if he worked it out himself or whether he had help."

Ali mumbled something about it not making the least bit of difference to him, but proceeded on his quest while I mopped up the shit. He found the onion in one piece on the front lawn after he noticed that the living room window had been broken. This probably accounted for the lack of smell. We deduced that Mohammed had blown the onion out. Whether it had broken the window when it was launched or when it was subsequently picked up and thrown by the sergeant after someone had untied him we could not tell. We did believe that we had tied him securely enough to make unassisted escape impossible and a check of the ropes we had used confirmed that they had been cut and dropped where they had been removed.

Ali picked the onion up with a plastic bag wrapped around his hand. He didn't throw it into the garbage though. He told me that he was going to keep it as a souvenir.

It was important to determine whether Mohammed had escaped or not. If I was going to be placed in charge of a company of P.O.W.'s, I wanted to be sure that Mohammed was not among them... especially if Ali was going to be my second in command. I was mulling this over as I looked for clues and it suddenly struck me that Ali did not have a uniform to change back into. In fact I had never seen him in any uniform. I supposed that could probably account for my initial attraction to him. He didn't look like a soldier. Right now, he looked like a Kuwaiti... a Kuwaiti who could speak English and Arabic... a Kuwaiti translator. As such, he would not have to have a uniform, and I would be able to put him on my payroll. I informed him of this and we held a little mustering out ceremony shortly before I interviewed him for the post of translator. His credentials were impressive. I discovered that he could also speak French and a little Italian.

He got the job.

We straightened up the place as best we could and I dictated a note to Ali apologizing for the mess and the holes in the beams. We left it in the mail box along with a couple of hundred dollars from the restaurant receipts to pay for the damage to the house.

I was all set to head back to the restaurant when all of a sudden Ali stopped talking again. He led me through to the back of the house and found some of the candles that we had left. He lit them and carried one to the bathroom. I picked one up too and followed him. He was right, of course, the restaurant had washrooms but nothing for bathing. After the day we'd had a shower was a good idea and we had twenty minutes we could spare. We kissed in the romantic light of the candles... well, maybe half an hour... and he turned the shower on. I watched as he reached up under his robe and withdrew an enema bag. Evidently he had other things in mind. I took my watch off. I had a few things in mind too by then.

We stripped and climbed into the tub. We washed each other's bodies and his touch brought me an erection. It always did. Before I knew what was happening I was kissing him and wishing my tongue was longer. I wanted to drink him. There was nothing about him that I didn't love. Even his peculiarities were endearing. Traits that I would have found annoying in anyone else, in Ali were charming. He had this nervous tic that twitched his left cheek from time to time. It made him appear to be winking when it happened. He was embarrassed by it. I pretended not to notice it, but secretly waited for it so I could know that there was an imperfection, and know as well that it didn't matter.

His cheek was twitching when he broke off the kiss and ordered me to about face. I figured I was going to get a tonguing. I got the tip of the enema tube instead. I tried to protest, but he had a large handful of my nuts. I couldn't move without losing something, so I opted for my virginity.

The experience was... unique. It wasn't at all painful, like I had thought it might be. In fact, it was kind of nice, because it was Ali who was doing it to me and not some three hundred pound nurse with three more to do before her coffee break. I relaxed and let him fill me, marvelling at my capacity as the bag emptied. Then his finger was inside me and we were dancing in the bathtub again, only this time he was leading.

He guided me to the toilet and pulled the stopper, grinning from ear to ear as I filled the bowl. Then we were back in the tub again and he was filling me once more, only this time, I was on my hands and knees and when he replaced the tube, he didn't use his finger.

I've already told you that there was a difference in our heights. I guess I've already told you that Ali had seven inches. That was the night I measured them, when they were all inside me. He left a little of himself in there too, hopelessly swimming upstream, and I was loath to let it go. But finally, we were finished and I was at the point where I would not be able to contain myself much longer. Unfortunately we were on our hands and knees in the bathtub joined to each other like a couple of Siamese twins and it was then that I realized that neither one of us had thought far enough in advance to figure out how we were going to get me to the toilet. I mentioned this to Ali, who, as it turned out, had just been considering the same thing. He, however, had one additional problem. He was right in the line of fire. I felt the pressure building and reached through my legs to feel his testicles. They were hanging loosely in the sack.

"For Chrissakes, Ali, don't lose your erection."

I'd forgotten that I was in a Muslim country. I should have said, "For Muhammed's sake..." Ali lost his erection and I blew him to the other end of the tub. Neither of us was seriously injured, but there was a lot of noise, a good deal of embarrassment, and some humiliation. Somehow our friendship survived its second test of the day.

"What's going to happen to me?" Ali asked as we walked back to the restaurant.

I wished I knew. All the reports we had heard from the G.I.'s who had been dining with us all day had been almost too good to be true. But Colonel Hadford had assured me the night before that they were correct. Essentially throughout the whole theater of war, the same thing was happening that had happened to me. The Iraqi army was going in two directions. The big joke of the day had been that the palace guard were back at the palace. The true believers were on their way back to Baghdad. The skeptics were giving up in droves. No decision would be made about their fate for months, possibly years.

I had promised Ali that he would not have to go back to Iraq. When I'd promised him, I hadn't been aware that he spoke English and I also hadn't been sure if that was true. I had been speaking to him as you would to an injured animal, trying to sooth his fears with my voice not my words. I knew nothing about him. I didn't know his last name for Chrissakes. There were a lot of blanks to be filled in. But all that didn't matter. That was just stuff for the pencil pushers. Those guys have all the answers and they can tell you forty different reasons why you can't do something. What Ali wanted to know was what was going to happen. That was a whole lot different from knowing what was not going to happen. He wanted to know my plan... and I didn't have one. I didn't tell him that, though.

"You're going to be coming back to New York to live with me," I told him.

"Really?"

"Really," I confirmed. Now all I had to do was figure out how. But you know, after I made the promise to him I knew in my heart that it was all I'd ever wanted since I'd met the kid and I knew I had to find a way.

"What's your last name, Ali?"

"Do you really want to know, Joe?"

"Yes, I do."

"It's Hussein."

"You mean like..."

"No relation. I was thinking of changing it, anyway."

"Oh? To what?"

"Anything else, actually. What's yours?"

"St. Laurent," I supplied. "My father's family came from Montreal." He hadn't said anything so I figured he was probably having trouble with his geography. "That's in Canada..."

"You're kidding... right?"

"No, why?"

"Larry Saint Larry?" he quizzed. Evidently he knew where Montreal was.

"Yah... so?" I think I was probably a little on the defensive by then.

"I've gotta meet your parents."

"Don't worry, you will." I felt his arm go around my waist. It was unusual for this display of affection to happen in public in an Arab country. But, what the hell! The lights were still out and it was dark. I dropped my arm over his shoulders. We both stopped talking.

The next day Colonel Hadford showed up for breakfast and gruffly ordered me to get my uniform back on. After he had eaten he stood up and held a little ceremony right there in the restaurant to give me a field promotion. It was actually quite touching being surrounded as I was by my twenty-seven captives/employees and more importantly my best friend/lover, too. And it was totally unexpected.

Hadford had done his homework after he'd left the restaurant the previous evening. Evidently there had been a few promotions after the invasion and this opened up a little room for advancement. He secretly admitted to me in the office of the restaurant after breakfast that the pressure had been on for the military to produce a few heroes for the media. Some of the promotions had been done in a press conference earlier that morning that was synchronized to coincide with a talk show in Washington. It was Colonel Hadford's belief that some of the stripes and scrambled eggs passed out then had really not been deserved and it would have been kinder to the legitimate recipients to let them get their sleep, so, in my case, that was precisely what he'd done. Besides, he told me, my outfit was kind of unique and although he personally approved of my initiative and what I had done, he doubted that legal affairs back at the pentagon would support me. That had been the real reason my mug hadn't been plastered all over the known universe with the rest of the bozos who had stumbled into headquarters at two o'clock in the morning to be on television. I don't think anybody was watching anyhow... at least not in New York. It was a big hockey night on television and both teams were playing.

Anyway, I got a new hat, and Ali and I had been able to get some sleep. After the workout he'd given me back at our house, as we were now calling it, we needed all the rest we could get.

Ali did not get much rest though. After breakfast he took the Colonel out to show him the spots where the mines had been planted. I could not remember him having talked to any of the others about the location of mines, but he seemed to have his information straight. As I waited for him to come back I got to thinking about this. He probably had been involved in planting them. How else could he explain how he knew where they all were?

It certainly seemed like the sort of work Ali would do. It might even explain that nervous tic of his. Several times he had displayed what could only be described as suicidal tendencies. I still hadn't asked him about that. I supposed I should. They say you're supposed to confront that sort of behavior and bring it out into the open. I was lost in these thoughts when Juarez's jeep pulled up just outside the window where I was sitting. The breakfast rush was over and the boys were trying to find something to throw together for lunch. I was writing out a shopping list.

Juarez climbed out of his jeep and stood not three feet from where I sat. He was looking right at the window. I was on the other side. He pulled out a comb and used the window as a mirror to tidy up his hair. Then he pulled his hat back on and looked around as another jeep pulled up. He strolled to the door of the restaurant, but I could not move. I was transfixed by what I saw happening on the street. Colonel Hadford was getting out of his jeep. Ali hopped down beside him. They both strolled towards the restaurant door. I was amazed that Ali didn't display any recognition of Juarez. He walked behind Colonel Hadford, though and when he passed in front of the window he looked up at me. His left eye winked... well it twitched. I could tell that he was aware of the situation. Juarez was smiling and holding the door for the Colonel. Colonel Hadford acknowledged him with a nod and stood aside to let Ali go in first. I headed for the back room. Ali followed me quickly and had just about made it when Juarez called out, "Hey, you in the bathrobe..."

Ali froze not two feet away from me on the other side of the door.

"Yes, sir..." he answered.

"Bring me a hamburger, will ya? And step on it..."

Ali looked at me. He was twitching like crazy now, but he swallowed and grinned a bit. "I can do that," he advised me, "although I don't know why he would want me to step on it..." Then in a louder voice he asked, "Do you want any onion on that?"

"Yah, everything on it," Juarez answered.

Ali stepped through into the back with me. I grabbed him by the shoulders.

"You wouldn't, would you?" I asked him.

"That's the guy I brought it back for," he answered.

I tried to convince myself that Ali was just pulling my leg. But I hadn't had to know Ali very long to fear that he wasn't. I was happy that he and I had managed to end up on the same side... somehow. Ali could be either a very loyal friend, as I was already aware, or a very bad enemy, as Juarez was in the process of finding out. Unfortunately, Juarez was exactly the same as Ali when it came to his abilities as an enemy... I don't know about how he was with his friends. I never knew him to have any friends.

I made Ali promise to throw the knife away after he used it on the onion... if he used it.

BUGGING OUT or BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

We got the word from Colonel Hadford that we'd have to leave for Saudi Arabia the next day. I hadn't really had time to think much about the imminent change of fortune that my group were facing. Some of them I hardly knew. Others I had developed a rapport with that made it hard to think of them as my prisoners. I didn't know any of their names, except Ali of course, although by then there was no longer any thought in my mind that he was anything but my hired translator. Colonel Hadford had signed the paperwork without batting an eye and issued a temporary i.d. in Ali's name when I vouched for him having lost everything to the Iraqis who had been holding him prisoner. I did not elaborate too much about my actions liberating him from the house where they were threatening to kill him, but I believe the colonel could read enough between the lines to know that it was implausible at best and impossible at worst.

You'll notice that a lot of my story was based in reality. Of course, I had to fudge a few of the details here and there, but I figured I'd been through enough with Ali to know where his loyalties lay.

The way I had it figured, Ali had faced an Iraqi firing squad. That Ali was dead. Nothing could bring him back. And since it had been my gun that had killed him, if he had been killed, I was sort of responsible for his body, which, through a technicality, was still alive.

The rest of the guys were a different story. Like I said, I didn't know them by name. Early on we'd assigned them identities based upon their order of surrender. Their numbers became their names in my mind as well as theirs.

The kids who had surrendered to Ali and I and done the striptease that first night were the youngest we had. Three was hardly more than sixteen. One was a little older than Three, but not by much. Two was the old man of the group and might have been eighteen, but not for many months. They were all students, of course, and looked out of place in a war. But they proved themselves to be willing workers in our restaurant and were only worried about one thing, the threat of being sent back to their homeland. That's why they surrendered to Ali and I.

They had seen us enter the city and followed us to the house where we'd washed off the oil. When we'd gone in Ali had been my prisoner. That had been obvious to them. They had remained concealed outside keeping an eye on the house from a distance until darkness fell and they had felt that they could approach without being seen. I learned later that they had been watching Ali and I in the bedroom and knew what we had done.

Then they had seen Mohammed and his two boy soldiers arrive. They withdrew to a safe distance but kept the house under observation and were moderately surprised to see the two Iraqi soldiers high tailing it a short time later.

A little while later they observed Ali and I leave together rather than as captor and captive. I guess they had waited for us to clear out before they crept into the house to find Mohammed bare ass to the breeze in the sling with an onion up his ass, not a single pubic hair to his name and his uniform in pieces on the kitchen floor. Despite his muffled protestations, they left him there and set out after us.

Evidently they liked my style and didn't want to lose Ali and I, but they'd agreed amongst themselves that it would not be in their best interests to surprise us. So they tailed us at a distance while Two worked on his little English speech.

When Ali told them to take their clothes off, they almost believed they were in for the same treatment Mohammed had received. But when he told them to get dressed again they realized that he had only been searching for hidden weapons... and to satisfy his own curiosity. When I fell asleep shortly after their arrival, Ali evidently filled them in on his day and explained the pecking order to them.

Four arrived a short time later as Ali was getting ready to join me in the chaise lounge. Ali knew Four. He had seen him around and Four outranked him, but that didn't stop Ali from taking his rifle from him and adding it to the pile. Four and Ali were the same age, twenty-two, but Four was a more mature twenty-two and already had a full mustache that made him look older. Ali had something that Four didn't have, though. He had a command of the English language, and he had my trust.

Five arrived while Ali and Four were working out their relative stations. Five told Ali that he didn't have a gun. Ali believed him, but ordered the two of them to strip anyway. He had ulterior motives. In the case of Four, he wanted to see if he could make him do it without me to back him up. As far as Five was concerned... well, he just wanted to see him naked. Five was kind of hot-looking and humpy. Everybody watched when he took his clothes off, and everybody enjoyed it... well, everybody but Five... and me. I missed that show.

Ali barricaded the gate and watched his captives for a while before crawling into the crook of my arm in the chaise lounge and covering us both with one of the surplus robes from my knapsack. Six, Seven and Eight arrived together as he was trying to get to sleep. They had noticed Five going in and had waited to see what would happen to him. They shook the gate a little and Ali had to get up and tell them that we were no longer admitting anyone, but they could re-apply in the morning. Evidently they remained on guard outside the gate for the rest of the night.

Six was the last teenager we got. He was nineteen and spoke a little English, as did Five, but communicating with my prisoners was no longer a problem and by now I had pretty much grown accustomed to relying on Ali to read my mind. I should have realized that he was listening to me mumble and taking his cues from the things I said to myself, but at the time it just seemed like we were on the same wavelength.

As my P.O.W.'s numbers approached double digits, it became increasingly difficult for me to remember who they were. Their faces blurred together too, mostly because by the time we hit thirteen... or should I say, Thirteen hit us... we were at the restaurant, and I had left the responsibility of looking after roll call to Ali. The only one of my double digits that I really got to know early on was Twenty-one.

Twenty-one was a long gangly kid with a permanently furrowed brow. He looked like he was always worried about something. He had huge hands and feet attached to long limbs that he sometimes didn't seem to have any control over. He was a studious young man and spoke English just as well as Ali. The two of them read everything they could get their hands on and spoke English when they discussed what they had read. Quite often they agreed about what they were discussing. Sometimes they didn't, though, and whenever they couldn't they would ask me to referee. Some of the stuff they asked me to decide about was right out of my league.

I found myself becoming very fond of Twenty-one. Ali noticed us whenever Twenty-one would hang around outside the office door talking to me a little bit too long. But he never said anything to me about it. I think I found out why the night before we were to bug out for Saudi Arabia. I was having trouble sleeping. Perhaps it was because Ali's body was too warm next to mine. During the night I felt him get up and I sort of figured he was headed to the bathroom for a leak. But he didn't go to the bathroom. Instead I heard the office door open and close quietly.

It seemed like a nice night to take a little walk, even though we were both naked, so I got up too and followed him out. He wasn't in the restaurant. Neither was Twenty-one. I did hear quiet English-speaking voices coming from the back door, though. I peeked out in time to see a naked Ali disappear beneath Twenty-one's robes. A little while later he became visible again when Twenty-one pulled the robes over his head and let them fall at their feet. Ali was standing on tiptoe with his hot young shaft plowed all the way up into Twenty-one's ass. Twenty-one's own ample member was stiffening rapidly... as was mine as I watched in the moonlight.

I watched them without them knowing and I felt like a voyeur. Behind me in the restaurant the noises of men sleeping made me aware that I too was probably being observed. In fact, it wasn't long before Five stepped out of the shadows not six feet away from me and pulled me back from the door. He led me to the office and inside it as if it was the most natural thing for him to do. He closed the door behind us and leaned against it as if telling me that what was going on in the alley was between the two young men who were making love. But I thought that I was getting another message from Five as well. I lit a candle to be sure, and when the light filled the room I found a frightened teenager with worried eyes biting his lower lip and looking expectantly at me.

"Do you want to stay here with me a little while?" I asked, sinking to the sofa. Five looked perplexed.

"Ali is with you," he told me.

"Not right now he isn't," I contradicted. "He seems to be with Twenty-one."

Five let a small grunt of a laugh escape him, but he did not lose the frightened expectant look. If anything it got worse. But he did stop leaning against the door. He stood momentarily just in front of it and I couldn't tell whether he was about to flee through it, but he stepped away instead and drew closer to me.

I sat up on the sofa and he hesitated a little before stepping directly in front of me. I noticed that he swallowed hard. I noticed also that he was showing hard beneath the apron he wore. I lifted the apron. His pecker was sticking out of his fly. Evidently he'd been watching Ali and Twenty-one too.

I untied the apron strings and unhitched his pants. He did nothing to encourage me, but neither did he discourage me as I pulled the white pants down to his ankles and swallowed him.

He really was an attractive young man. He had worked out with weights. That was evident. But his body was also soft, as though he had only tried to add bulk. His cock was not as long as Ali's. He lacked a couple of inches. But it was about the same diameter and easy to swallow. His nuts were drawn up, wrinkling their sack. I licked them a few times and tasted the salty funky flavor of his perspiration.

I turned him and admired the fleshy young ass cheeks and their two dimples where they attached themselves to Five's back. I parted them and found his shit hole. The smell was, as always, mildly repulsive and completely addictive. I tasted him and knew what flies found compelling about the area. I drove my tongue into him and heard him gasp and felt him shudder. He was beating himself rapidly now and I reached around front to slow him to a more relaxed pace as I prepared him for bigger things to come.

I turned him again and pulled him to the couch beside me. I unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it from him massaging his beautiful round chest and rubbing my hands along his belly to his crotch. He did the same to me afterwards.

Then he was kissing me and crying. I tasted the salty tears that I managed to lick from his face before I pulled him away from me asked him what was wrong.

"Ali said he doesn't have to go back. He said you promised him, Joe. What's going to happen to the rest of us? What's going to happen to me, Joe?"

"My name is Larry, Five. What's yours?"

"Abdul..."

"Abdul, I'm going to do my best for you... for all of you. When we get to Saudi Arabia tomorrow I have to look up a buddy of mine in legal affairs. He'll be able to tell us where we stand. But what I told Ali is the truth. I'm not going to let them send you guys back to Iraq... unless you really want to go. Do you want to go back?"

"No," he answered quietly. "I can't go back."

"Why can't you go back, Abdul?"

"Because I come from a family who would kill me if they knew I was sitting here naked with you."

"You won't have to worry about that," I answered. "I won't tell anybody. Besides, nothing happened. You didn't do anything. You don't have to do anything. Why don't you put your clothes on before..."

"Larry, you don't understand. I want this to happen. I just don't want you to think I'm doing it just so I won't have to go back to Iraq. I'm doing this because I can't do anything else." He held my eyes with his own and I couldn't help falling under his spell. "I'm doing this because I like it. But if I go home I will have to marry a woman... and I do not like women. Do you understand, Larry?"

I had to admit that I did. "But why are you crying?"

"Because I can... now. I am here with you. You are an American... and you are going to make it all right."

I swallowed hard. I hoped my buddy from New York, Jerry Weintraub, would have the answers I was looking for. Jerry worked back in Riyadh, at headquarters which was so far behind the front lines that grunts like me in Kuwait referred to it as hindquarters. Jerry was a very successful lawyer and had done a lot of immigration work in New York. If anybody had the answers, it would be Jerry. I relaxed a little and thumbed a tear from Five's... make that Abdul's face.

"I'm going to do my best," I told him. "And now that Colonel Hadford has put me in charge of you guys, you can be sure that I'm not going to abandon you."

Well that was all Abdul had to hear. He was all over me like a bad rash, kissing me and poking me with that pecker of his and before I knew what had happened I had my cock up his ass and he's bouncing in my lap with his arms behind my neck and I'm doing my best to beat him off as he fucks my cock with his ass.

Well, he gets this really stupid look on his face, which is a sort of compensation that the really good-looking guys have to pay, I figure, and stops bopping around on my lap, but he does it with me jammed into him up to the hilt and the next thing I see is a long arching string of jism shooting up between us and I don't know whose it is except that I know it can't be mine unless I've done some real damage to the guy, but it turned out to be his and it's headed straight up between us and I see it going past my nose. Well I'm unloading into him pretty heavy too, but when I notice his cream sort of hanging there in mid-air I push my face into it and I manage to catch a little of it on my tongue, but the majority of it I'm wearing all over my face and I can't open my eyes without blinking in the jism that I know is right there. I can't wipe it off either because both of my hands are sort of pinned under Abdul.

Well, I'm exhausted by this time and so is Abdul. He sort of collapses onto the couch beside me and I slide out of him as he does. I'm there laying back and trying to recover and I can feel Abdul beside me and I'm about to wipe my eyes, when all of a sudden a tongue starts licking the stuff away from my eyes and off my face and another one starts licking my cock just before the mouth that it's in swallows me pretty good.

Of course I'm lying there with my eyes closed and enjoying this and thinking that Abdul sure knows how to make a guy feel good, when it suddenly dawns on me that he can't be in both places at once. So I reach over and feel him still lying there beside me and he's pointed in the wrong direction to be doing what I can feel being done to me.

Half of me says I'd better open my eyes and see what's going on. The other half says that might not be a good idea and what I don't know won't hurt me. So I compromised. I only opened one eye... at first. What I saw was the inside of Ali's nose. He was licking Abdul's semen from my face. I decided to open the other eye. It revealed Ali's ear. When he saw that my eyes were open he drew back a little ways smiling and we both glanced down at my lap. Twenty-one was sucking me, while his own prick was in Abdul's mouth receiving the same attention.

"You guys are pretty quiet," I told Ali. I hadn't heard them come in.

"No we're not," he answered. "But you two are awfully noisy. You woke up half the guys out there." He kissed me then and I knew that I was forgiven. "How was he?" Ali asked.

I winked at him.

"I thought you'd like him," Ali answered.

"Did you set this up?" I asked feigning anger that he saw through immediately.

"Hell, no!" he replied. "But it was bound to happen sooner or later." He kissed me again. "He's a nice kid. Am I still sleeping with you, Joe?"

I pulled him to me.

"Of course you are. I love you," I said. "And my name is Larry."

"I promise not to hold that against you. Do you mind if my friends stay the night?" he asked. "I thought we might have a pyjama party."

"But, Ali, we don't have any pyjamas," I grinned.

"That makes it even better, doesn't it?"

I had to agree with him.

I awoke the next morning with Ali beside me in his usual spot curled up with his head on my chest. On my other side lay Abdul only faced in the opposite direction so that his groin is just about where my face is. I remember having made use of its proximity at one point during the night. Then Ali had demanded equal time, of course.

It is light enough for me to see Abdul now and although the warm glow of the candle no longer lends its gold to the color of his skin, I can tell that there is enough warm bronze there to cause his skin to glow all by itself. He really was incredibly beautiful lying there.

There's something else different about him from the first time I saw him sleeping on the patio. He isn't twitching from a nightmare. He has an almost serene look on his face... at least the part of his face I can see from behind my kneecap.

I realize then that he too has off-loaded the responsibility for his future onto someone else's shoulders, and it doesn't take me long to remember what I told him the night before.

It also doesn't take me long to remember what day this is and to realize that in a couple of hours we're going to be in Saudi Arabia, and so far I have no idea of what I'm going to be able to do for these guys. This fact is sort of driven home to me when Twenty-one walks in with his robes on and tells me that Colonel Hadford is waiting for me out front with a very big truck.

Well, I pulled my uniform on as quick as I could and hustled my ass through to the front of the place and the first guy I run into out there is Juarez. He's looking real mad and not too well. Normally Juarez has a pretty good tan, but today he's sort of greenish gray.

When he sees me I figure the jig is up, but instead he sort of nods at me and goes right on haranguing the boys on the morning shift. None of them speak English, fortunately, so Juarez turns to me and tells me that if I'm smart I'll avoid this restaurant cause something he got there the day before has kept him up all night and turned the sand outside his tent into a latrine.

Then all of a sudden he remembers that he hasn't seen me for a few days and he looks at me and sees that my rank has gone up too.

"Where'd you get the extra stripe?" he asks.

Well without going into too much detail I explain that I got it from rounding up a bunch of Iraqis single-handed. Then I tell him I'm in charge of moving them out to Saudi Arabia. He looks like he's almost listening to me, when all of a sudden he makes a dash for the bathroom.

There's a bunch of G.I.'s having breakfast and Colonel Hadford is waiting for me out front. He's seen me too, so I can't go back and tell Ali to keep his face out of the restaurant. Since none of the P.O.W.'s currently out front can speak English either I scribble a note on a scrap of paper and give it to Ten, who looks fairly smart. I say Ali's name and point to the back of the restaurant. Ten smiles at me and nods and stands right where he is. So I take the note back and do my best to write Ali's name on it in Arabic. I give it back to Ten and he admires it and smiles at me again, all the while he's nodding his head. I'm sort of getting exasperated by this when all of a sudden Twenty-nine, who's working beside Ten looks at the note and grabs it from him. Twenty-nine disappears out back. I have to go through to the front where the colonel is waiting for me.

"How many have you got now?" Colonel Hadford asked me as I joined him on the sidewalk.

I had to confess that I didn't know. I left all of that to Ali to keep track of. Colonel Hadford allowed that I had a good man there and I had certainly been lucky to come across him... regardless of where I got him.

I agreed with the colonel and listened to his description of how Ali had led him to every mine field they had managed to find and how this had led to a more rapid repatriation for the citizens of Kuwait. Then he glanced at his watch and realized that the repatriation was about to begin and it might not be a bad idea if I got my men loaded onto the truck and the hell out of Kuwait.

We agreed that it might be a better idea to move the truck around back, since there were still soldiers having breakfast, and what they didn't know about who had been feeding them for the past few days wouldn't hurt them. I climbed up beside the driver and showed him where to go.

As the men climbed into the truck I counted them out of curiosity. They misunderstood and thought that I was getting their numbers confused. They, of course, corrected me and threw my count off. I had to keep starting over. Ten and Twenty-nine were the last to join us. They had been holding down the fort in the restaurant and wanted to make sure that their last few customers were satisfied before they sidled out and climbed up on the truck.

Ali did a quick head check and announced that he had counted thirty-nine. I had given up at twenty-seven. I pushed him up between the driver and myself and a moment later we were off. At the end of the alley a very frightened-looking Iraqi soldier surfaced from the dumpster where he had been concealed and chased after our truck. With the helping hands of the men at the back of the truck he was soon hoisted up.

Ali and I watched through the rear window of the cab as the young man was thrown into the middle of the truck and unceremoniously stripped of his uniform. It disappeared in small rags along the side of the road. Ali grinned at me.

"Forty," he said.

We headed down the highway past the "Devil's birthday cake" and choked our way through the greasy smoke of the hundreds of burning wells. We knew that we had almost overstayed our welcome when we began running into traffic coming from the other direction. It was a flotilla of automobiles with Kuwaiti flags and American flags and people hanging out of every window and flapping in the breeze. They were all sounding their horns and singing patriotic songs at the tops of their voices.

It was unsettling for our vehicle to be caught in the midst of all of this celebrating. Unsuppressed nationalism can be a dangerous thing. I figured I had better get my gang celebrating too, or they might look a little conspicuous, especially since we were bucking the traffic, so I opened the door and climbed into the back. Ali followed me, ostensibly to translate, but more than likely because he was scared stiff and looked it. I taught them how to sing "Mairsey Doats and Doesey Doats," which was the least offensive and most meaningless song I could come up with on the spur of the moment. By the time we reached the Saudi border they had it down pretty good and had even picked up the first verse. We had also managed to make it through the celebrating Kuwaitis. As the truck picked up a little speed I helped Ali back into the cab. As he climbed down a gust of wind took his robes and lifted them like Marilyn Monroe's skirts. He was wearing my underwear again. I grinned and swung in beside him.

"There's been a slight change in plans," I told the driver. "We've got to make a stop in Riyadh."

He looked at me kind of funny and inquired if I was aware of how far out of the way that would take us. I replied that it didn't matter and the driver accepted the change with only one more protest.

"We'll have to gas up somewhere," he mentioned. "Do you know where we can get some?"

"Sure," I said. "Poke a stick in the sand..."

SAUDI ARABIA

THE BEST LAID PLANS

The rest of the trip into Riyadh was uneventful. We tanked up at a service station on the way and Ali paid the attendant with some of the money we had made running the restaurant. When he pulled the wad of bills out of my knapsack, which he now wore, I was surprised that we had as much as we did. There was easily a couple of thousand dollars, so I had him buy a round of soft drinks for the boys who lined up to use the rest room and work the drink machine.

As we sipped our pop another army vehicle, a bus, pulled into the service station. When I say it was another army vehicle I mean to say it was a vehicle from another army. It was a Saudi bus, undoubtedly full of Saudi soldiers. I rounded up my men and loaded them back onto the truck just as the bus rattled, hemorrhaged and died. We were pulling out as the Saudi servicemen disembarked. It was a good thing we left when we did. They were all dressed in white too. It could have been confusing.

With Kuwait behind us I no longer had any excuse to put off thoughts about how I was going to look after my men. Well, for the most part, they were looking after me. Ali and I had forty batmen picking up after us and anticipating our every need. They knew what I liked and when I liked it. Even a major movement from one country to another didn't stop them from keeping track of my needs and doing it on schedule too. Exactly at noon a hand reached through the open window of the truck with sandwiches for Ali and I. This did not surprise me as it did the driver who was also receiving manna from the back of the truck through his open window. What did surprise me was the cup of coffee that showed up ten minutes later, piping hot and perfectly satisfying. I didn't ask how they had managed that. Sometimes you don't want to know.

Until now we had been dealing with an unreal situation in an unreal setting. Soon we would be back to the reality of Riyadh, but for my men the only reality was that the war was over and they were going to America. All I had to do was work out the details.

We parked out in front of Jerry's office which was in one of those low flat buildings you find all around army bases everywhere in the world. My men milled about and took in the sights completely inconspicuous in their restaurant whites. The only thing that even vaguely made them look like prisoners was the number Ali had marked in indelible ink on every piece of clothing, to avoid arguments and to make it easier for me to identify them. The only man without a number was Forty. But then he didn't have anything but his underwear and boots. Forty stayed in the truck.

If the outside of the building was unassuming, the inside was not. Inside, the building was a mass of corridors leading past tiny cubicles in a labyrinth that seems to be common to most army structures. It's sort of like life in the service, all twists and turns with an appropriate number of dead ends built in to discourage the faint of heart. I've never liked the army. That's why I'm a reservist. I can only deal with it in small doses.

I didn't find Jerry in his office. He was at a meeting in the restricted area down the hall. It was some sort of press conference for a visiting dignitary from the States, a congressman or a senator or a minister or something. I never did find out who it was... not that I care... I figure we were lucky to get off without being charged or shot... or both... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jerry eventually showed up, and he was kind of glad to see me, but he didn't really have time for me. He was busy keeping track of what people were saying to this guy from the States. He had just come back to his office to get his jacket and was on his way to the reception that was being given after the press conference on the lawn on the other side of the building. He told me to come along with him and he would try to find a few minutes for me between the gaffs in protocol that were certain to happen.

I tried to broach the subject of my P.O.W.s, but Jerry was not listening to me. He was talking on his radio and informing the security at the reception that it would be getting started in about ten minutes. Then he said something that I should have caught, but I was too busy trying to get his attention that it slipped right past. He asked whoever he was talking to if those damned caterers had arrived yet. There was an answer that I couldn't quite hear, but Jerry seemed satisfied and we were off down the hall double time.

I stayed on the periphery of the gathering. I don't like lawn parties with politicians. When you throw in army brass they become doubly dangerous. You can ruin two careers in one fell swoop. I tried to remain inconspicuous, which was hard, since I was the only one there not in dress uniform. Even the waiters looked better than I did. I found a nice little bricked patio that had been set into the ground away from the lawn and pulled up a chaise lounge behind some shrubs. I could keep an eye on the party from there, but I didn't think anyone would see me. I was wrong.

"Would you like some punch, sir?" The voice had a familiar ring to it, but I was busy watching Jerry through the shrub. I waved my hand to dismiss the waiter and was surprised when he answered, "Aw, c'mon, Joe. I'll fix it just the way you like it."

I turned in time to see Ali pissing in an empty glass. When he finished he handed it to me. I was too dumb-founded not to take it. My mouth was hanging open too. Ali reached over and lifted my jaw shut with his finger.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, finally finding my tongue.

"Taking a leak," he said as he dropped his pecker back into his pants.

"What are you doing here?" I clarified.

"We were drafted," he answered. "Did you want ice for that?"

"What?" I put the glass down on the table beside me. "What do you mean you were drafted?"

"I mean just that. We were just standing around out front and this colonel came out and asked us if we were the group from food services."

"What did you tell him?"

"We told him that we had a little restaurant experience."

"But you aren't supposed to be looking after this."

"No, but the guys who are aren't here. So we said we would help him out."

"Does he know who you are?"

"He never asked."

"Ali, do you have any idea of who is here today?"

"No, who?"

"I dunno... but there's a lot of brass. What if one of them finds out who you are?"

"They probably think we're Saudi's."

"But you're not..."

"We look like Saudi's..."

"I look like a Brit... but I'm not."

"So what's your point, Larry?"

"The point is, you're not Saudis."

"We weren't Kuwaitis either. But everybody thought we were when we were in Kuwait. If we were in Spain, they'd probably think we were Spanish. Larry, we've been doing this for days now. Don't worry, nothing will happen. Besides, the food is good here, and we get to eat out back. Have you had anything yet?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm trying to remain inconspicuous."

"The best way to do that is to mix in. I've been working this gig now for over an hour and all the people are talking about is that queer duck hiding behind the hedge."

"You mean me."

"Sorry about the 'queer' thing."

"You think I should mix a little?"

"That's the only way you'll ever get to talk to that lawyer friend of yours. Try the pâté..."

"What have you done to the pâté?"

"Nothing. Juarez isn't here. I already told you we're eating this stuff too... Oh don't let me forget to take a doggy bag to Forty. And could you see about getting him some clothes, Larry? Our bag is out back with my clothes. There's plenty of money and I think there's a store across the street. There's something over there. He's a size thirty-six regular. Look, I've got to go and get another tray of drinks..."

"Ali," I called after him.

"What, Larry?"

"You'd better do up your fly."

He looked down and pulled it carefully up. "I guess I've been wearing the robes too long," he blushed.

I followed him up to the lawn. He disappeared out behind the tent that had been set up at the far end of the lawn. Moments later a tall gangly young man with a furrowed brow and large hands and feet handed me a plate of food. There was a large dollop of pâté in the middle of it.

"Thanks, Twenty-one," I said.

"Don't mention it, boss. Nice party, huh?"

"It would be if I knew any of these people..."

"Yah, I know what you mean. Be careful with the pâté. It tastes a little funny."

"Thanks, but I'm not a pâté person. What happened to the truck driver?"

"He's across the street at the Officers' Club. He got tired of waiting for you and said we should send somebody for him when we're ready to leave. He left Ali in charge."

"So Forty is all alone in the truck?"

"I hope so."

"Does he speak English?"

"He doesn't even speak Arabic right now. He's scared shitless. I think he's hiding under a tarpaulin. I don't know how long he's been hiding out in the dumpster, but we heard noises last night." Twenty-one sighed and I followed his gaze. Five was coming out of the tent with a tray of drinks. His waiter uniform hugged him in all the right places... places we longed to hug him. We both fell silent as we followed his progress through the crowd. The Senator or Congressman or whoever he was took a drink and Five passed along the line. One of the Senator's or Congressman's aides got the last drink on Five's tray. We saw Five smile and turn to walk back to the tent. But the aide said something to him. Five stopped and smiled a nervous smile at the man, who was probably in his twenties. We saw him say something and the aide brightened as Five once more turned away.

"You'd better get over there, Boss," I heard Twenty-one suggest, but I was already moving. I needed to get within earshot in a hurry.

"Abdul," Five said, and there was relief on his face when he saw me approaching.

"Well, Abdul, I was wondering what it is that you do when you're not working affairs like this one."

"I... work... in a restaurant."

"Oh? I thought that this was being catered by the army. You aren't in the army?"

"No."

"Not in this army anyhow, eh, Abdul?" I asked. "That's right," Abdul agreed. "Not this army."

I introduced myself to the aide.

"The Saudi army then?" the aide speculated.

"Actually, Abdul just came down to Riyadh after a tour of duty in Kuwait. He's headed back north after the reception. He'll be working at a P.O.W. camp with me."

"Lucky P.O.W.'s..." the aide observed. "Where do I surrender?" There was no mistaking the signals that were being sent.

Five smiled nervously, but did not take the opportunity to move. It was pretty obvious that he was enjoying the attention. The aide was a handsome man with blonde hair and gray piercing eyes. The eyes were piercing parts of Five's body that would normally never be pierced. Five's shy quiet eyes were returning the favor, a little more discreetly.

"Do you have any more punch?" I inquired when the moment had gone on too long and showed no signs of abating.

"Sorry, sir," Five answered and departed, remembering where he was and, hopefully, who he was.

"So, Lieutenant," the aide remarked, "how do you like running a P.O.W. camp?"

"I don't know for sure," I answered. "I haven't started yet. I'll be going there after the reception."

"Where did you say the camp is?"

"I'm not really sure. That's why I'm here actually. I have to talk to a friend of mine from New York. He'll probably be able to tell me. If not the truck driver will know. Truck drivers always seem to know."

"Oh, do they? That is a useful piece of advice... er, information."

The aide wandered off in the direction of the tent. I could not follow without appearing too obvious. I didn't have to worry though. Twenty-one was tailing him by now. I had been right about our abilities to communicate without language. We were all on the same wave length.

I took my leave and crossed the street to the PX to do some shopping. When I got back to the truck I didn't see anyone in it. There was a tarpaulin in the corner though and I jumped up inside and pulled it off. Forty was there all right. I could smell him before I could see him. He must have been living in that dumpster for awhile. I did my best to smile at him through the fumes, but something had to be done especially in the desert heat, or one or both of us was going to be sick.

I looked into the cab of the truck and was relieved to see the keys in the ignition. I'd been watching the driver all the way from Kuwait City and was pretty sure I could handle one of these things. I'd driven a school bus in upstate New York and the truck didn't look that much different. I held my hands out in front of me in what I hoped was the international sign to tell the guy to stay put. Then I crawled over the side and into the cab.

The motel was called the Desert something or other. With all the news and extra army personnel around I had to drive halfway back to Kuwait before I found a place. They had rooms and I rented one. I backed the truck to the door of the unit and parked it. Then I went to the back of the truck again and motioned to Forty to come with me. I led him to the bathroom and turned the shower on for him. Then I left him alone.

I switched on the television and found a channel with a news program on it. The announcer was speaking Arabic, but there were plenty of maps and charts. I could tell who was where and from the looks of it our side was winning... fast. I had been there about twenty minutes when the water stopped running and Forty appeared at the door of the bathroom as naked as the day he had been born. He hadn't stopped to take a towel. He stood dripping in the middle of the floor with his eyes glued to the set in disbelief. I figured this was probably the first time he'd had any news of the war in days. The television reception is pretty bad in dumpsters.

I smiled at him and patted the bed beside me. He sat down and I got up to fetch him a towel. He took it absently and began to dry his hair with it, taking no thought of his nudity. That was okay with me.

"Looks like you picked the right side," I offered. He looked at me. Well, it hadn't been a question.

Then the television started to run some stock footage that had been taken earlier of prisoners being herded out of the desert and into P.O.W. camps. There was a seven second shot of me escorting Ali down the highway. Forty looked at me.

"You," he said. Well, at least he spoke English.

"Yes," I answered, "and Ali..." I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

I had expected my first dose of reality to come in Riyadh... but I hadn't expected to get it from television.

I got my second dose from Jerry, and it hit me like a cold shower. All of my promises were worthless. My men would be repatriated just like the rest, once the war was over. And at the rate the allied forces were advancing on Baghdad, that might be any hour now.

Jerry told me in effect not to get attached to my prisoners. I thanked him for his advice. I only wished that he had given it to me about four days before. I stumbled from his office and found my way back to the truck. I forced myself to smile at my group, but I think they saw through me. They mounted the truck again though and Ali slid up into the cab beside me.

"What's wrong, Larry?" he asked.

I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth.

"Lawyers..." I said and left it at that. "I'm tired Ali. How much money do we have left?"

He counted it and I realized we had enough for ten rooms at the motel. I had left Forty there to relax a little while I returned to Riyadh to take care of business. I figured my men could use one night of relative luxury. I started the truck.

There was a pounding on the roof of the cab and Twenty-one leaned over and informed us that we were missing one man. I told him I was aware of that, and that Forty was at the motel waiting for us, but he said he knew about Forty and that the missing man was Five. I shut the truck off.

"Okay," I said, "where's Five?"

"He went away with Winston," Ali confessed. "He was supposed to be back by now."

"You mean that guy at the reception?"

"That's the one, Boss," Twenty-one said through the window beside me.

"Do you guys realize the situation that puts us in?"

"It'll be all right, Larry," Ali tried to soothe me. But I would not be soothed.

"Why did you let him go?" I demanded. "What were you thinking of?"

"We couldn't stop him," Ali snapped back.

"Sure you could have. Five respects you, Ali..."

"I was talking about Winston. We couldn't stop him. If they hadn't gone away together, they would have been having sex under the table. We figured it would be better to get them away from there. Winston promised to bring him back. They should have been here by now."

It was getting late. We couldn't wait much longer. But no one wanted to leave Five behind. At long last though, we had no choice and I started the truck again. I was turning it around when the jeep pulled up and blockaded me. Five jumped out of the jeep and onto the truck's front bumper. He climbed across the hood, hopped onto the roof and down into the box behind us. The jeep left quickly, but not before I noticed that it was one of the V.I.P. vehicles and the man driving it had not been wearing a uniform. His hair had been blond.

When it became obvious that I was not going to wait for the driver, Twenty-one climbed down and into the cab alongside Ali.

"What's up?" he asked.

"It looks like we're going to have to go back to Iraq,"Ali said quietly. I looked at him. He reached up and pushed my jaw shut.

"Where'd you get an idea like that?" I asked.

"From you, Larry."

I couldn't look at him. I glued my eyes to the road. We really did communicate better without words.

"It's true then, isn't it?" he asked.

"Not yet it isn't," I vowed, but I couldn't say it to his face. I said it to the windshield. "And it won't be if I have anything to say about it," I added, but at that point none of us believed it.

I found the motel again with only a little difficulty. We got a break on the rooms. That night my men had real beds for the first time in days, but more importantly, they had real showers, some of them, for the first time in a week.

Ali, Twenty-one and I joined Forty in the room I had rented earlier. I let Twenty-one and Ali shower first. Forty was still stuck to the television. He filled me in on the progress of the war and then I asked him why he had lived in the dumpster. He grinned an embarrassed grin and shook his head.

"I was scared," he confessed.

"Of me?" I asked.

"No... no... yes," he admitted.

"Then why did you chase the truck?"

"I was more afraid of the others."

"What others?"

"You know... the Kuwaitis..."

"It seems to me like you should have gone back to Iraq, if you were afraid of us and the Kuwaitis..."

"Oh, no, I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I deserted four days ago. I've been hiding out ever since."

"What? In the dumpster?"

"Sometimes..."

"Why did you desert?"

"Because they made me do things..."

"What things?"

"Bad things..."

"Did they force you to have sex?"

"I'd rather not talk about that."

I took it as an affirmative.

"Is that why you were afraid of me?"

"No, I..." Forty sighed. "Yes. Sometimes I looked in the window of the restaurant. I saw you and them." He jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom, indicating Ali and Twenty-one."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"It wasn't the same, though. They looked happy with you."

"I hope so, Forty." He looked at me with a peculiar expression on his face and I realized that he was probably not familiar with the numbering system. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Djamal. You are Larry, yes?"

"Yes, that's right."

"I heard them talking about you in the truck. They say you are going to make everything all right. Is it true, Larry?"

"I wish you hadn't asked me that, Djamal. You'll be all right for a while, anyway. We're going to a P.O.W. camp tomorrow. After the war is over, it's hard to say..."

"Larry, the war is over. Your army has stopped. My army has disappeared."

"Not all of it," I cautioned. "Ali and I ran into a squad the other night in Kuwait."

"Yes, I know. That's one of the reasons I was in the dumpster."

"You know?" I was suddenly apprehensive. "How do you know?"

"I was in the bedroom with you. The man you attacked was my squad leader. That was the night I deserted him. I figured that if he would have killed Ali, I would probably be next." I must have looked pretty surprised. "Are you angry with me, Larry?"

"Why?"

"Because I did nothing to help you..."

"You didn't have to, Djamal. I had disabled my gun. I knew that it wouldn't work."

"Ah, that was it. I thought he just didn't know how to use it. But still, I should have done something before he pulled the trigger. Can you forgive me?"

"I'm not the one to ask, Djamal. You should talk with Ali about that."

"Yes, of course you are right."

"Come to think of it, I should talk to him too," I thought. There were still questions in my mind. They had not been crowded out by the disappointment, only forced to the rear. When Ali reappeared naked from his shower, I handed him his robes and asked him to come for a walk in the desert with me.

"What is it, Larry?" he asked as we walked across the parking lot and out into the sand. It was still hot under our naked feet even though the sun had gone down. "What did you find out today?"

"I found out that I don't know what's going on," I answered. "I found out that my side isn't really the good guys after all."

"Larry, there are no good guys in a war. War brings out the badness in us all and we are told that it is all right to do things we have been told all our lives were wrong."

"You are a philosopher, Ali."

"I like to think for myself. I like to think that I control my own destiny by being the person I want to be. But now that doesn't work anymore. My destiny is to be a wog in Iraq, it seems. It was nice to have a little hope for a while. You gave that to me, Larry. Don't be too sad that things didn't turn out the way you thought they would. You did save my life, you know. I owe it to you. And it is yours..."

"You saved mine too," I interjected. "We're even on that score. And as far as going back to Iraq is concerned, don't pack your things just yet..."

"What things? I have nothing, Larry. I gave everything I had away before I went out to blow up the gas and oil. I didn't think I was coming back."

I stopped and looked at him. He turned to face me. "What are you looking at me like that for, Larry?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to ask you why you would have done that. I know you had your orders..."

"I didn't need orders, Larry. When he told me what he had in mind I volunteered. You have no idea what things were like for me before I met you. Believe me, it was almost a relief to get the chance to kill myself. It was the next step. My life was over anyway."

"Tell me," I said. "I want to know everything about you."

"No you don't," he answered. "It isn't a very nice story."

"It's your story," I argued. "I want to hear it."

"All right, but don't say I didn't warn you. I'm a bastard, Larry."

This took me a little by surprise. I'd never met one before... except for the kind who are bastards and don't realize it... like Juarez...

"Good," I answered, "for a minute there I thought you were going to tell me you were a lawyer."

"It's not funny," he said. "In my country it is a disgrace."

"But it's no reason to kill yourself..."

"That wasn't the reason..."

"What was it then?"

"I told you, my life was over. I had no hope. And after I had spent my whole life studying to be able to get away to another place where I could use what I learned without people pointing at me and calling me bad names, my country goes to war and all of a sudden I am a pariah in the eyes of the world as well as in my homeland. You must understand, Larry, until I met you I had no hope. I wanted to die. Now I have something to live for... someone to love... someone who loves me... I hope."

"Of course I love you, Ali. I love the person you are, not what you came from. You were sent to me by God, I think."

"I'm sorry, Larry, but I don't believe in God. He would have to be a very hard god to let the things that have happened here happen."

"To tell you the truth, Ali, I'm with you on that score. I've found that religions are mostly political, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them. We have enough disagreements without fanning the flames of fanaticism. But I have to believe that something brought us together... other than Juarez."

Ali sneered at the mention of his name.

"You found me, Larry, exactly when I needed you. For this I owe you my life."

"I found you exactly when I needed you," I countered. "Things hadn't been too good for me up until then, either." I looked into his eyes. They were reflecting the light from the motel sign, which would soon have to be extinguished, just in case there were any Iraqi planes left that could fly. "And I have no intention of losing you. I'll just have to get Jerry to change a few minds."

"We'll be okay for a while, Larry. The camp won't be bad. At least we'll be together."

"You're right, Ali. And when the war's over, you'll come to the States with me just like we planned. After all, you have Kuwaiti citizenship now. Colonel Hadford looked after that already, remember?"

"Do you think they'll accept that?"

"They have to. You work for the U.S. Army, Mr. Hussein."

"Please don't call me that."

"What would you prefer, Ali Baba?"

"I told you already. Anything but that..."

"Then Ali Baba it is. Come on. Let's get back and see what the forty P.O.W.'s are up to."

"Okay, Larry, but first, kiss me."

"If I kiss you, I won't be able to stop."

"That was the plan." Ali shrugged his robes off his one shoulder and they slid into an elegant pile on the sand.

"Are you sure you want to do it out here in the desert? The damned sand gets in everywhere, you know."

"I'm willing to chance it if you are. I don't feel like performing for those two in our room."

"We could get another room..."

"No, I want you now. Kiss me, Lieutenant Larry."

"Yessir, Mr. Baba..." My robes joined his on the desert floor.

YOUR REALITY CHECK IS IN THE MAIL

There was no sleep for me that night. Ali cuddled in the crook of my arm as was his wont. I breathed in the scent of his hair and felt the warmth of his body and tried to commit to memory the things he had told me about himself after we made love in the desert.

He knew his mother. His father was unknown to him. He had never heard his mother speak of him, in fact. His childhood had been a lonely time, a time that people had shunned him, before he was old enough to know why. It was not uncommon for him to spend a whole day with no other playmates, and so he learned to draw from inner resources. He learned early how to read and sometimes the things he read would give him clues about himself and sometimes they told him about other places in the world where he would rather be.

The tourists and business people who came to Baghdad brought with them treasures from other lands, magazines and cassette tapes were his favorite finds. He found them outside of hotels where the foreign people stayed. And one day he found a job there, shining shoes. It paid poorly, but it paid in coins from all around the world, coins with pictures of men and women who ruled other lands, other lands where they spoke another language and printed their words with letters from a strange alphabet.

He learned the alphabet easily and he learned to say it in English and in French. That helped him to sound the words he saw in the magazines and when he could sound them he could understand some of the words he heard on the tapes. Before long he was able to buy a dictionary that promised to tell him what all of the words meant and even showed him how to say them properly. He set himself the task at nine years of age to learn one hundred words a day. He started by learning the words the tourists would use.

Soon he was guiding the tourists who needed to know where to go and didn't mind being directed there by a bastard. This was one of the first words he learned. He learned it because he now knew that he was one. He now knew what it was about him that other people did not like. And he knew there was nothing he could do about it. When you're a bastard, you're a bastard for life.

He also learned that he was desirable and, although marriage for him was out of the question (who in their right mind would marry a bastard?) there were plenty of young men about who were willing to be had by him, and many more older men who longed to have him. He had gone with the younger men. He had treated them to his seven inches. And he had saved his ass for someone special.

Evidently that someone had been me. That made me feel kind of special. Well, I felt kind of special whenever he was with me. I guess I had made him feel special too when he'd found that I was a virgin as well. Ali had been my first real lover... no... make that my only lover... period. He showed me what love was. The others who came before Ali and with Ali could not compare... were not in the same league as him. His love made me who I am today. Oh, God, I'd better stop talking like this.

Twenty-one and Forty were in the other bed. I pretended sleep but kept one eye open to see what would happen. For all of his forlorn looks, Twenty-one was a sexual animal and Djamal, for all his protestations was a willing participant... no, participant is too tame a word to describe Djamal. He was a manipulator and he manipulated Twenty-one that night right in front of our eyes. They whispered in Arabic to each other and plotted how to determine if Ali and I were really asleep... well, Djamal plotted and then he sent poor, forlorn Twenty-one to do the actual reconnoitering.

Twenty-one ventured over to our bed and lowered his face to within inches of first Ali's, then my face. He remained there quietly holding his breath and listening for irregularities in our breathing. When he was satisfied that we were both in deep sleep I heard him move away and whisper to Forty in Arabic. Forty answered him. I heard a sudden breathy exclamation from Twenty-one and felt Ali's body become rigid against mine. Evidently he too was awake. Forty responded quietly to Twenty-one's question. That was when I decided that I should learn more Arabic. Twenty-one then switched to English for some reason.

"Are you sure, man? What am I gonna use for ropes?"

I knew now why Ali had tightened up. I felt myself tense. I think Ali felt it too.

Forty replied in Arabic, but Twenty-one was obviously stuck in an English loop.

"Well, all right, man, I'll have a look."

He disappeared into the bathroom and returned moments later, empty-handed. He shrugged and slipped out into the night in his shorts. We watched Forty prepare himself in the next bed. He removed his boxers and pulled them over his head and around his neck. Then he shook the folds out of his stiffening penis and laid back to await Twenty-one's return. He didn't have to wait long.

Twenty-one returned moments later carrying the first aid kit from the truck. He checked Ali and I once more before returning to Forty's side and opening the kit. I took advantage of his back being to us to reach around Ali and grasp his genitals. I had been right. He was awake and just as interested as I in what was taking place in the next bed. Already he was half hard. I brought him the rest of the way, and my own member was already at full staff and straining to part his ass cheeks by the time Twenty-one began to tie Forty to the bed with the gauze bandages from the first aid kit.

We watched in fascination as Forty tested each bond and Twenty-one's boxers bulged as he considered his coming conquest. When Forty was satisfied he ordered Twenty-one to lose the boxers. The desert moon lit the scene as Twenty-one's shorts slipped down and that wonderful arching erection of his finally popped into view. I glanced at Forty's face to see if he might be reconsidering his folly, but there was nothing in his countenance to suggest surprise or terror or any other emotion, for that matter, other then anticipation.

Twenty-one finished removing his underwear and I felt an involuntary shudder shake Ali's body. I'm pretty sure he was laughing, but he was doing it quietly and keeping it to himself. I, too, found the situation hopelessly humorous, but I wanted to see what would happen. I squeezed Ali's dick to warn him to stop and he quieted. But Forty had noticed something and jerked his head towards us with a sharp whispered command in Arabic. I closed my eyes and felt the heat from Twenty-one's face as he once again leaned over us to check our breathing. I tightened my grip on Ali's pecker to warn him not to move, lest he lose a very important part of his anatomy.

Twenty-one's inspection took longer this time and he even lifted the covers to try to see where my hand was. I loosened my grip on Ali's member as I felt the sheets rising and what Twenty-one saw was my hand lying along the curve of Ali's belly just under the elegantly sculptured navel that always drew attention. I guessed at the time that Ali was really getting into it. His body was very warm, almost hot to the touch. I heard an involuntary little gasp and wondered who had made it. But I did not wonder enough to fall for the ploy, if it was one, to make me open my eyes. It had to have been Twenty-one. He lowered the sheets and returned to his bed. I opened my shadowed eye again and made sure that he had indeed finished his inspection. Then I cautiously reattached my hand to Ali's manhood and opened my other eye far enough to see clearly.

Twenty-one was sucking Forty. He did not concentrate on one thing in particular, but went wherever his fancy and Forty's whispered commands took him, from nipple to toes, from navel to nuts, things he couldn't suck he licked, like the soles of Forty's feet, or his knees. The only thing he didn't suck was the one thing most people head for right off the bat.

The love-making was being orchestrated, of course, by Forty, who writhed on the bed and strained at his bonds as his attacker devoured him. His rock hard erection stood straight up from his body and seemed to glow silver in the moonlight, but that was just the way the light struck it. Forty did not have a silver cock, nor did he have a condom. Twenty-one's answering erection slapped at his belly, but if he tried to touch it there would be a harshly whispered command from Forty and Twenty-one's hand would let go causing the thing to spring back against him with a solid slap that probably would have wakened Ali and me if we hadn't already been awake and watching.

The more Twenty-one licked and sucked the less the two of them seemed to care about the noise they were making. They seemed to have forgotten that we were there, so lost were they in the passion of the moment.

They weren't the only two who were affected. Ali's penis was also at full alert and I had to block it with my thumb to keep it away from his belly. Mine was similarly disposed, but firmly planted between Ali's ass cheeks. The harder I got the further Ali was pushed up in the bed. I know it sounds impossible, but that's what happened, and I was having difficulty seeing past the crown of his head, which had not been in my line of sight when Twenty-one and Forty had started.

Forty said something to Twenty-one and the long lanky Iraqi climbed onto the bed and sat on Forty's face. Well, you know what I mean... He was kneeling with his legs on either side of Forty's chest and he sort of settled his ass onto Forty's face. We could hear Forty slurping around back there and making it all wet and slippery. In the moonlight I saw Twenty-one get some strange looks on his face and he's rubbing Forty's stomach and down through his abdomen to the good stuff, but he still hasn't touched it that I know about. They kept that up for about five minutes, or maybe it was ten. Time acts strangely when you're watching a couple of guys doing what they were doing. All of a sudden, though, Forty tells Twenty-one something and Twenty-one turns around and sits on the other end. He settles down on Forty like a hen on eggs, slow and easy, and I'm amazed that there isn't more noise, but then Twenty-one starts rocking up and down and before too long the noise starts. Forty is moaning and so is Twenty-one, but now Twenty-one is in total control of everything but his vocal chords.

It doesn't take long before we see how stupid Forty can look. He's obviously blowing up a storm inside Twenty-one and Twenty-one is bopping up and down like crazy doing him the best he can until Forty gives him the word and he settles down and pulls off him.

Well, he has to go into the bathroom to take care of dumping his juice, and Twenty-one glances over our way to make sure we still haven't been disturbed, then he toddles off with his finger over his asshole leaving Forty tied up and kind of messy. We can see Forty moving his arms and legs and kind of testing the bonds, waiting for Twenty-one to get back. He doesn't have to wait long.

When Twenty-one gets back his cock is sticking out as stiff as ever and the first thing he does is untie Forty's feet. Forty says something to him, but Twenty-one is not taking orders any more. He climbs up from the foot of the bed and lifts Forty's legs up as he comes. Forty complains a little about this, but Twenty-one tells him to shut up, in English and spits on Forty's ass. He rubs it in with the head of his dick, and then he's fucking him deep and hard.

That's when Ali gets up and staggers to the bathroom. This sort of surprises me, not to mention Twenty-one who looks at me and realizes that I am awake too. He recovered quickly though and barely missed a stroke. He's still fucking Forty when he says, "You'd better go take care of him, Boss. It's the pâté. He ate a lot of it."

I found Ali on the toilet. He was green in the gills and sweating profusely. I knelt beside his poor shrivelled form as he doubled over with cramps and his anxious eyes swam, trying to focus on me.

"I'll get a doctor..."

"Don't... don't leave," he pleaded. "I... Ayee..." There was a twist of pain knotting his face and I heard him let go. The poor kid was shitting through the eye of a needle. "Larry, I'm dying..."

"No, you're not, Ali. You just had some bad food." But I didn't believe what I was saying. I knew enough about food poisoning to know that people did sometimes die from it. "Twenty-one!"

"Yah, Boss..." He was standing in the door seconds after I called him.

"Get a doctor, man!" I ordered. "I don't care where, or how much it costs." But I was talking to an empty doorway. I heard the door of the motel room close almost before I'd finished. I remember hoping that Twenty-one had remembered to pull on his boxers.

"Larry..." Forty called.

"What is it, Forty?"

"Can you come here a minute?"

"Sorry man, I can't leave Ali. Why don't you come in here." As soon as I said it I knew the answer, of course. Forty was still tied to the bed by the wrists. He probably still had his boxer shorts around his neck. But there was nothing I could do for him, except hope that Twenty-one got back quickly.

"Larry," Ali moaned.

"What is it, baby?"

"Don't let them bury me here in the sand. Take me home with you."

"You aren't going to die, Ali. And nobody is ever going to separate us."

The motel door opened and I heard Twenty-one come in. The light flicked on in the big room and I heard a strange voice exclaim and begin to speak in Arabic. Twenty-one answered it in English, "No, man, the patient is in the bathroom. This guy is... my date."

I don't know what I expected, but I know for sure that it was not what I saw. A familiar dumpy form filled the bathroom door. It was dressed in restaurant whites with the number thirty-seven scribbled on the shirt in marker ink. But he carried a small black bag.

"Thirty-seven!" I exclaimed, "You're a doctor?"

"I'm a doctor, but my number is Thirty-three... oh shit I grabbed the wrong shirt! He ate the pâté, huh?"

"Pigged out on it," Twenty-one commented wryly from the other room as he cut the bonds that held Forty.

"Well, let me have a look at him."

I got up and let Doctor Thirty-three take my place in the crowded lavatory. I sidled over to Twenty-one who was now anxiously staring through the doorway.

"I told him to lay off that stuff," he told me. "Now he's getting ready to meet Allah."

"He doesn't believe in God," I answered absently.

"Maybe he didn't used to," Twenty-one informed me, "but he does now. That's who he's talking to."

"He's praying?"

"He has a right to," the doctor interjected. "He's in pretty bad shape. He should be in a hospital, but I don't think he would travel too well. Let's put him back into bed and see what happens. He's young and strong. We'll get some ice and try to cool him off. Who wants to take the first shift?"

I lifted him from the toilet and cleaned him as best I could. Then I carried him to our bed as Twenty-one went for the ice. I applied cold towels to him for the rest of the night and the doctor made the rounds of the other rooms looking after the other pâté lovers in our group. None of them had had as much as Ali, evidently.

Ali drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the rest of the night and the next day. I stayed there with him and held his hand for all that time, except a half an hour when things got a little exciting outside and I had to let Twenty-one take over while I straightened things out with the M.P.'s who arrived with the truck driver we had abandoned in Riyadh the day before. We got to keep the truck and the M.P.'s took the driver back to headquarters to explain why he had left the vehicle parked with the key in the ignition and forty prisoners of war in the back.

It was as the jeep was driving away that I noticed another jeep in the parking lot. It had not been there that morning. I walked over to it and examined it. It was one of the V.I.P. vehicles from Riyadh and it was still cooling off. Evidently Winston had taken my advice about truck drivers knowing where everything is. I hoped that Five was not a pâté lover. Then I remembered that Five would not have had a chance to eat much at the reception. He had been busy being devoured by Winston.

The next morning Ali's fever broke and I awoke beside him under sheets soaked with his perspiration to find him looking at me. He was very weak, naturally, but he managed a shy smile and an apology for the trouble he had caused me.

"You weren't the only one who was sick, Ali."

He looked disappointed.

"But you were the only one we thought we might lose," I hastened to add and this seemed to satisfy him.

"How about you, Larry?"

"I don't like pâté..."

"I don't either... anymore. What time is it?"

I looked at my watch. "Four thirty."

"Good," he answered, "at least I haven't held everybody up. Are we still going to the camp today?"

"That was supposed to have been yesterday, baby," I soothed. "You've been asleep for a while."

"How long?"

"A day and a half," Thirty-three answered from the next bed. "Larry has been with you all that time."

"You've got a good friend there, Ali," Twenty-one added lifting himself up on one elbow to peer over the substantial frame of the doctor.

"Yes, I know," Ali answered. "He saved my life again."

"That was the doctor," I interjected.

"No," Thirty-three objected, "that was the will of Allah."

"I don't believe in Allah..."

"Sheesh!" Twenty-one hissed and fell back into bed. "I don't believe this guy!"

"Ali," Thirty-three pressed, "It is very ungrateful for you to say that. What you believe is not important. But it is obvious that Allah has a plan for you. Your life is important only when you see how it affects other people. Do you think that we gave ourselves up to a man with a gun? Do you believe that?"

"Why not? It's true," Ali countered.

"It is half true," Thirty-three corrected. "We gave ourselves up to a man with a gun and an Iraqi boy who used to be his prisoner, but then became his friend. I am sorry, Larry, but it is true. You were just another soldier until you showed us how you treated Ali. Ali gave you legitimacy in our eyes. You became a man we knew we could trust."

"I'll buy that," I said. Then I turned to Ali. "You'd better give up, kid. They heard you praying in the bathroom."

That was the first time I got the last word. Ali drifted off to sleep again before he could come up with anything.

I went for an early morning walk around six o'clock to dry off in the desert air. At that time of the day the desert is nice. What I saw in the parking lot disturbed me a little, though. Winston's jeep was still there, but it had been moved to another spot outside a unit that we hadn't rented. Neither Ali nor I had done a head check in the past day and a half, but I was pretty sure I would come up one short if I was to pull a surprise bed check... so I didn't.

I got out past the first dune, where Ali and I had made love, and was surprised to find the indentation where his body had been. Usually the desert takes care of things like that in a relatively short time. The poet in me tried to interpret the desert's hesitancy to cover our tracks as a sign that our love would last, then I caught sight of Five watching me from the top of the next dune. It wasn't Ali's indentation I was looking at. My private moment was over. I was surrounded again. Winston and Abdul joined me moments later.

"Nice robes," Winston remarked facetiously. "You must have great pyjamas."

I smiled wanly. "I sleep in the nude. When did you get here?" I asked.

"Yesterday," he answered. "My boss got sick suddenly, and had to take a couple of days off to recuperate. That gave me some free time."

"How'd you manage to end up here?"

"It's funny you should ask," Winston smiled. "I was on my way to have a look for that camp you told me about and I took your advice. I asked a group of drivers where the camp was. It turned out that one of them had to go there to pick up a vehicle, and he said he would show me, if I would give him a ride. On the way up he spotted your truck and said that it was the one he was looking for and it shouldn't be at the motel. Well, we flagged down some M.P.'s and had them check the truck out. I sort of lost track of what was happening, but I guess he left with the M.P.'s. You've obviously still got the truck."

"And you've obviously found Abdul."

"Hi, Larry."

"Hi, Abdul. We'll be leaving around noon."

"I'll be ready. How's Ali?"

"He's gonna live. Chances are he won't eat any more pâté, though."

"Ah," Winston brightened, "you seem to have pinned down the problem."

They wandered away into the desert and disappeared behind a dune. I hoped that Five knew what he was doing, then I realized that he probably did. He had attached himself to two Americans now. If one of them couldn't keep him out of Iraq, maybe the other one could. I hoped he liked the guy. As far as Winston was concerned, there had never been any doubts about his feelings for Five... er, Abdul.

That got me thinking about the demographic composition of the whole group who had turned themselves in to me. Obviously they were all men... well men and boys. A lot of them spoke English or another language other than Arabic. The ones who didn't were either very well educated in highly specialized fields, or were still in school when the war robbed them of their chance to learn. Even Ali, who was an outcast, was extremely bright, and had educated himself as his needs demanded.

A lot of my men were involved in sexual activity with each other. Perhaps this was natural. Perhaps it was because there were no women. Perhaps it was that old Muslim bugaboo that kept the women segregated until marriage. Whatever it was it brought to mind that joke, in Arab countries, how do you seperate the men from the boys? With a crowbar...

Ali and I had noticed the intellectual superiority of our group early on. Twenty-one was Ali's favorite sparring partner, a young man just out of university who had brought books with him. Ali coveted the books and borrowed them shamelessly. This led to debates as well as conversations. I was amazed at the range of their interests and their perceptions of those interests. They really out-distanced me, but, hey, that isn't too hard.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it wasn't surprising to find this particular group of men wanting to get out of Iraq. They all felt either persecuted or wasted. I was happy that the doc had explained about me not being the one who had drawn them out of hiding. Sure it had been Ali who's presence with me had encouraged them to join us.

That was when it struck me that Ali was the only one who had been captured. Did that make a difference, I wondered? He had had plenty of opportunities to escape. He had even had opportunities to kill me. His love seemed genuine, though. He did not serve me subserviently either. My ass had been reamed by him now as often as his had been reamed by me. But what did the war have to do with it? Were we clutching each other because we were afraid and grasping at the first sympathetic comrade we could find? Was it something else? Was it real?

What is reality after all? Most people perceive reality from different starting points. Ali's reality came from Muslim beliefs. Mine was based in Christianity. I had left the religion behind, of course, but I could not leave the concepts. Why, for instance, had I bristled when I had seen our medics in a truck with a red crescent on the side of it instead of a red cross. That sort of thing should mean nothing to an agnostic... but it did.

I wondered if I would have prayed if I had eaten the pâté. They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I hadn't really been tested on that theory yet unless you count the incident at the docks in Kuwait. I suppose I could have been killed that day and Ali and I would have found out together, but I can't recall having been afraid for my life. Until I touched Ali, I had just been doing my job... just trying to survive...

Ali's fear of being buried in the sand haunted me. He even wanted to escape if he was dead. I vowed to myself and the rising sun that he would never go back to Iraq. Then I hurried back to the motel room. I had to be with him. And there was no way I would ever let him out of my sight again.

We gassed up the truck and headed out at noon... a rather stupid idea now that I think of it, but we got away with it and my men were used to the sun anyway. Ali lay in the front with his head on Twenty-one's shoulder and his feet curled up in Thirty-three's lap.

I had managed to get directions to the camp from Jerry, who was a little ticked to hear that we still had not made it. Jerry didn't sound too good on the phone. He told me he'd had diarrhea for two days and was not feeling well at all. Evidently Jerry also liked pâté. I commiserated with him and told him that there had been something going through my men as well. Jerry immediately became suspicious and suggested that it might be a biological warfare weapon that had been used by the Iraqi's. I told him that the disease had probably been delivered by the Iraqi's but I suspected that the means of delivery was probably more conventional. I don't know what it is, but whenever I talk to lawyers, I get a charge out of playing with their pumpkins.

The camp came into view shortly after one o'clock. It was a hive of activity although we were the first group to arrive. The engineers were still putting up the fences and topping them with razor wire. Ali lifted himself to a seated position to see over the dash of the truck. The razor wire caught his eye immediately.

"Why, Larry?" he asked weakly.

"It's standard operational procedure, Ali," I answered. "They don't want anybody sneaking in at night."

"Nice tents..." Twenty-one offered. "Are they for us?"

"That's the idea," I answered. "Big, huh?"

"A hospital!" Thirty-three grinned. "Do you suppose they will have medicines?"

"If they don't, we'll order some. Would you mind setting it up, Doc?"

The dumpy little man smiled and I knew that I had found my new family doctor. I liked his bedside manner.

I pulled the truck up outside the main gate and we all climbed down. As I did, I couldn't help noticing the jeep that had stopped well behind us at the top of the hill we had just descended. It looked like a V.I.P. jeep and the driver seemed to be blond. Five saw it too and he looked a little worried about it.

CAMP WHATCHAMACALLIT

Doc gave Ali a thorough examination in his new hospital and declared him on the mend. But just to be on the safe side he hooked him up to an I.V. drip and left him overnight in my care. The hospital beds were comfortable enough and we had a good night's sleep... for once.

The engineers were still working on perimeter projects. All of the facilities inside the wire, as they referred to their fence, were in place. My men watched the engineers work and longed to give them a hand, but the soldiers doing the labor sniffed contemptuously at the offer. That's the trouble with guys who never actually see any action. They're always unable to understand the dynamics of conflict and the relationships that can develop, even between opponents. Everything for these guys was cut and dried... and they were absolutely wrong.

They didn't understand me at all. They figured that I should know better. I know that some of them never got over the way I treated my men, but that's okay. They all left the second day we were there anyway.

The major who was in charge of the construction of the camp handed over the keys on his way out. His services were needed elsewhere, he informed me, rather superciliously I thought, as if implying that mine weren't. Evidently there were rather more prisoners being taken than had been anticipated and there were camps to construct further north... a little closer to the action.

He left me wondering what action he was talking about. The motel television had been full of pictures of the fleeing Iraqi's being picked off by the long guns and smart missiles. They were running away and our boys were shooting them in the back. There were even one or two instances of our own tanks being struck by friendly fire. Now there's an oxymoron for you.

I chucked my uniform and went back to my robes.

Already I was sick of war... and I'd only really seen it on television. But I had these prisoners... there was no escape... for them or for me.

I don't think that any of them really wanted to escape, mind you. The only true captive in the crowd was me. And I had surrendered to Ali... not the other way around. I had this thought in my mind that first afternoon when I called Jerry back in Riyadh. It was the first of a series of daily calls to argue the case for my men. Yah, they were my men by now. I had managed to accustom myself to the notion that we were a group with a common purpose, but that purpose seemed diametrically opposed to the stated purpose of my country and the other allied nations who had declared war on Iraq after her invasion of Kuwait.

Any way, that's what Jerry told me. Every day it was the same answer, regardless of which tack I took or angle I tried to pursue. My prisoners were going to have to go home. They had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the Iraqi government by being caught by me. Their lives were not in danger.

I mentionned Forty's dilemma. He had deserted. Jerry told me a lot of Iraqi's had run away. He said that all Forty was guilty of was having a bad sense of direction. I thought his answer was rather glib and I told him so. That's when he asked me if I had any idea of how many prisoners we were dealing with. I told him I didn't care. I had forty men who had chosen me to go to bat for them and I intended to give it my best shot. I'll never forget his answer to that.

"You'd better change your name to Casey," was all he said. That's when I hung up on him.

The day after our arrival, Doc released Ali from the hospital and I showed him to our quarters. Then I took him on a tour of the camp.

He'd already seen the hospital, of course. I showed him the kitchen tent and another one right beside it that had been set up as a recreation area. Then I walked him to the latrine. If he was going back on solid food I wanted him to know where the toilets were... just in case.

The barracks tents were the largest and each one could accomodate forty men. This was rather a convenient figure. It meant that if others arrived we would be able to keep our men segregated. For now, though, the men slept wherever they felt like sleeping.

I kept the padlock for the main gate locked at all times. It sat on a chair beside my cot where I could keep an eye on it. We hadn't needed locks up until now. The fence was unnecessary. The razor wire was overkill. My men had the run of the place and there was no need to tell them not to run away. We were all in this together.

I did do a bedcheck though, just so we'd know when Winston was in the area. I didn't give Five a hard time for sneaking out for liaisons. I reasoned that a friendly ear in Washington might not be a bad idea, and Winston's boss was due to return there within days.

Finally our first full day at the camp was over and Ali and I retired for the night... at least, I had assumed that was what we were doing. Ali had other ideas. He was feeling frisky. I welcomed his recovery and asked him what he had in mind.

He looked at me strangely and bit his lower lip as he reached into his robes and produced several packages of gauze bandage rolls.

"You were watching those two idiots the other night," I laughed. "I hope you aren't serious about this. There's no way I'm letting you tie me up."

He handed me the bandages and cast his eyes down at our feet. Evidently he had stopped speaking again. I was getting the idea though. We were about to play a bondage game and Ali was waiting for me to start giving him orders.

I threw the bandages onto his cot and stepped behind him. He didn't move as I circled him and stared at him from every conceivable angle. His eyes remained downcast, his manner subservient. I touched his robes and pulled them towards me. He flinched a little but didn't retreat, so I loosened them and let them drop around his naked feet. His penis was flaccid and his testicles were slung low in their sack. I had never known Ali to exhibit this kind of control before. He seemed to be actually living the part of a frightened young man facing his first unsolicited experience with a man who would be his captor.

I touched the skin of his arm and felt him almost cringe away from me. It frightened me to think that this was the same playful boy who had taken my virginity. He played the part so well. It really turned me on to meet this other side of Ali. Could it be another personality? I'd heard of that, of course. Like most people I hadn't believed a bit of it... until now...

I grasped his shoulders, but he still refused to raise his eyes, so I did it for him, lifting his chin with my right hand. His eyes were closed, but his left cheek was stained with the trail of a tear that had made its way to his chin. As I watched another tear followed it.

Whatever he was doing, he was living the part beautifully.

"Open your eyes," I ordered and was surprised by the hard edge that my voice had.

He trembled and complied, but as his eyes opened, two more tears coursed down his cheeks, and he started to worry me. I stepped around him again and paused behind him. If he was going to play a scared kid, I would give him something to be scared about. I touched my index finger to the base of his neck and traced his spine down to his tail bone. I paused there with my finger at the top of his ass crack and felt him shiver. I knew that he wasn't cold. We were both perspiring from the heat. I inched down through his fleshy ass cheeks and felt his muscles tighten trapping my finger... preventing its passage.

"Relax!" It was an order. I heard him draw a short breath of air and knew that he would probably not obey me right away. My finger remained trapped.

It was not in my nature to hurt anyone... especially Ali. There was no way I would be able to bring myself to physically attack him, either in reality or in whatever this was that he had dreamed up for us. I'm sure he knew that. But just the same, this was not Ali. This was a creation of Ali. This was his "what if" character, his alter ego come to life. He was forcing me to create an opposite number, a ying to his yang, a night to his day. I warned him again and I think I added a time limit. It must have expired, because I pulled my finger roughly from his ass and spun him around to face me. I raised my hand as if to strike him and he winced in anticipation and squeezed his eyes shut.

I'd had no intention of hitting him. I grasped his shoulders and held them tightly as I looked down his naked body and my eyes came to rest finally on his Arab boy feet.

I had seen his feet everyday for the past week. I had kissed them. I had sucked his toes. But I had never really noticed them. They were at once ugly and elegant. Several nails were chipped and broken. The toes were big and clunky, not in keeping with the rest of the body which was lithe and cat-like, but at the same time the feet were compact and the toes were even, none of them either too far ahead or too far behind its neighbors. The feet themselves were thick, while the instep did not rise far enough to fail to leave its imprint in the sand. These were feet that had evolved for one purpose, walking in the desert.

He must have wondered what I was doing, because he opened his eyes and followed my gaze downward. When he saw what I was looking at he lifted one foot and tried to cover the other with it. I shook him until he felt his balance go and staggered back onto two feet again, but his toes began to curl to try to hide themselves.

I raised my eyes and found his navel. Again I used my finger to trace its bumps and indentations, but as I did I felt his body begin to convulse silently as he started to cry in earnest. I wanted to hug him and hold him until the tears were gone, but I owed him his fantasy...

I pulled him roughly to the cot that was to be his. I forced him down onto it although he put up a struggle. I straddled him to keep him there while I unrolled the gauze bandages and wrapped his right wrist.

Tears were streaming from his eyes as I finished attaching him to the cot. I know it was hard for him to see me as I undressed, but he watched, and strained at his bonds all the while as I revealed myself and my intentions. I was rock-hard and he knew damned well where I was going to put that thing. It was going into every orifice that was large enough or could be stretched large enough to take it.

Except, of course, that I couldn't do it.

Regardless of his true feelings for me, to take him that way would have been rape. I hated to disappoint him, but even though I wanted to live with Ali and share my life and my wordly goods (what there was left) with him, even though I wanted to give him what he wanted, I had to remember that I would also have to live with myself. Agnostic though I was, there were still things in the Bible that made sense. I suppose that they are in the Koran too. I couldn't escape the notions that had been bred into me. You just don't do that.

I slumped to the floor of the tent at the foot of the cot with one of those beautiful clunky feet of Ali's on either side of my head and tried to think of a way of explaining to him what he would undoubtedly want to know.

"It's all right, Larry," he said eventually.

"Why were you crying, then?" I asked, but I still couldn't bring myself to look at him.

"Because you scared me."

"I thought you wanted me to scare you."

"I did... you did a good job."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I know. I guess I've always known that."

"Always is a long time, Ali. We've only known each other for a week."

"Then I'm a week old, Larry. There was nothing before you."

I reached up and grasped his left foot and kissed it. The tent was quiet for a while. I kissed the right one too.

"You really should move up to this end," he advised. "I'm not sure, but I think it tastes better."

"Your feet taste all right," I told him.

"They might taste okay, but they're ugly. Come up here please, Larry. You're embarrassing me."

I crawled to the head of the cot and sat facing away from him.

"Are you going to untie me?"

"No."

"What, never?"

"Well, not for a little while."

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to escape. You are still my prisoner. I have the right to restrain you."

"I thought you said you didn't want to hurt me."

"I don't. Tell me something, Ali. Are you ticklish?"

"No." He said it too fast.

"That's good," I smiled and got up. I loomed over him and he knew what was coming.

"Larry..."

"You won't mind if I find out for myself, then."

"Larry... don't..."

"Excuse me, Ali," I grinned maniacally, "I've always heard that it's a good plan to start at the bottom and work your way up." I went to the foot of the cot and started on the soles of his feet.

He was stoic about it. He didn't kick or anything. For a while there I thought he might have been telling the truth... but just for a while. It didn't last. By the time I'd made my way up to his armpits he had turned to jelly and was shaking helplessly with laughter as he screamed for help from anybody. I think the tent door opened at one point. It was probably Twenty-one who came to Ali's assistance. It usually was. If it was, he didn't come in.

The tears were streaming down his cheeks again when I finally let up on him. I licked the tears away and kissed him. He responded, pushing his tongue into my mouth. Our teeth collided. This started us laughing again.

I worked my way down his still bound body licking and sucking everything in sight and fondling him as I went. He exploded into my mouth almost as soon as I swallowed his cock. This was all right. I still wasn't finished and neither was he. Ali was always good for at least two and sometimes three rounds in one session.

I finally made it back to his feet. I spent a while there lavishing attention on them and washing them with my tongue. The desert air dried them quickly. I untied them and crawled up between them until I was once again face to face with him. He kissed me and asked me to fuck him. It was all right now. The bonds did not matter any more. I left his hands tied though so that he would still feel helpless even while his legs wrapped themselves around me and spurred me on to more frenzied love-making.

I wanted to see if I could make him come without touching himself. I lifted his legs over my shoulders and laid into him, driving him further and further up in the cot until his head was dangling over the edge. I rammed him harder as I heard him beginning to moan and saw him getting that stupid look on his face... well, what I could see of his face. I glanced down in time to see him shoot a wad of jism onto his belly. This triggered me and I unloaded within him as he squeezed me with his legs that were now about my neck and threatening to strangle me.

Eventually we both relaxed and slumped onto the cot side by side gasping. I pulled him back to a more comfortable position, one where he could breath again, anyway, and we laid there side by side inhaling each other's fragrances... I guess I should say odors.

I did eventually untie his wrists, but not until I had once again devoured every inch of him and licked him clean.

We slept together in my cot that night. His was soaking wet, of course.

"Larry?" Ali said sometime in the night.

"Hmmm?"

"What did they name this place?"

"They didn't. They just built it and left. They were a mindless bunch of jerks. Names weren't important to them."

"Shouldn't it have a name?"

"I suppose it should. We'll have to have something to put on the postcards. How about Camp Ali?"

"Get serious."

"I was."

"Forget that. It should be named after somebody or something important shouldn't it?"

"You're important..."

"Only to you. I meant somebody or something everybody knows."

"How about Camp Onion Ass?"

"How about getting serious? We could call it Camp St Laurent." "No way... I thought you didn't like that name."

"I'm getting used to it."

"Well, forget it. Why does it have to be named after somebody anyway? Why not name it after something we all know?"

"Why don't you name it after one of those things with treads and tires. You know the things that look like they were put together by two different people..."

"You mean a tank?"

"No it's like a tank but it's like a truck too... You've seen them... you know what I'm talking about..."

I did know of course, it's called a half-track, but I couldn't come up with the name of the thing that night to save my life. All I could think to call it was a whatchamacallit. That's what we ended up naming the camp. But it seemed to fit, somehow. It almost sounded like a boys' camp. All we needed was a lake and some canoes.

Life seemed good there. My men had the run of the place and they took pride in keeping it ship-shape and spotless while I continued my brain-storming sessions and my daily calls to pester Jerry.

Two days later we took the truck and went on a field trip. Our money was getting low after the two nights at the motel and the meals that went with them, but we had a picnic lunch from the camp and enough money to fill the truck with gas. We took a trip to the gulf to visit the beach. It reminded me of Fire Island, except it was a lot hotter. I carried Ali down to the water and threw him in, robes and all. The oil had not made it down that far yet... I'm not sure if it ever did... but the water was warm and I dived into it after him. The rest of the men seemed restrained and hesitant, but they all eventually ended up at least puddling in the surf. They had spent all of their time working and trying to keep me happy. I guessed that they had sort of forgotten how to enjoy themselves. At least that's what I thought until Twenty-one told me about the jellyfish that had been reported in the area.

We were driving home and everybody seemed relaxed and happy. I heard the men in back begin to sing "Mairsey Doats and Doesy Doats" and I knew that all was well. This would be the night that Jerry would have to knuckle under and find a loophole for my men.

The truck crested the ridge above Camp Whatchamacallit, and my spirits sank. There was a whole platoon of soldiers there. They had guns and a bus full of extremely unhappy looking Iraqi prisoners of war. But that wasn't what bothered me.

"Oh shit!" Ali said. He spoke for the both of us.

Juarez was pacing in front of the gate... the gate I had locked for the first time since the engineers left. He looked pissed. Something looked different about him too. It took me a second to figure it out and when I did I knew that we were all in trouble.

"The goddamn fools promoted him Major. Ali, get lost."

Ali ducked down beneath the dash as I pulled the truck up behind the bus. I got down and headed straight for Juarez and saluted him.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he screamed.

"Right where they told me to go, sir," I answered. I unlocked the gate.

"What have you done with your prisoners?" he demanded.

"I took them with me, of course."

"Where?"

"Why, east sir. Those were my orders, weren't they?"

"What orders?"

"The message that came in on the radio, sir... about the nerve gas..."

"What nerve gas?"

"I'm not sure, sir. All they told me was to evacuate because they had a suspected gas incident and the wind was carrying it in our direction. They told me to get everybody out and wait for the all clear."

"Who told you? We didn't hear that."

"It was the Saudis, sir. We monitor their channels too... er, at least my translator does. May I bring my men back in now, sir? We'd sort of like to get a meal started."

He looked at my robes.

"Have you gone native or something?" he asked.

"Sorry, sir, but this was what I was wearing when the call came. We left in a hurry. I didn't have time to change."

"Well, do it now. And report to my office in fifteen minutes."

He jerked his head at the gate and told me to go ahead. Then he ordered his men to unload his prisoners. He had another forty in the bus. My boys scurried in and moved their stuff into the best tent, the one nearest the kitchen and furthest from the latrines. Ali managed to hide himself in the middle of the group and waited for me at the hospital with doc.

There was a marked difference in the attitudes of the two groups of P.O.W.'s. Mine were relaxed and smiling. Juarez's group were sullen and dirty. It might have been the bus ride that did it to them, or possibly they were true captives who really didn't want to be there. I never did find out. My men segregated themselves from the others. Juarez's order to keep the two groups of prisoners apart was completely unnecessary.

I changed and went to see Juarez. What he had to tell me really ruined my day, although it seemed to make him happy. We would all be going home soon. I asked him who he meant when he said "all" and he replied that he meant everybody.

"You, me, the frogs, everybody..."

"Do you mean the wogs, sir?"

"Huh?"

"You said 'frogs', sir. Frogs are French people. The Iraqi's are the wogs... er, this time."

"Yah, them too."

"They're going home, sir?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, they're going home. The deal was cut on the third... two days ago."

"But what about the war, sir?"

"The war is over, Lieutenant. I'm amazed that your Saudi friends didn't tell you."

"I've been a little busy, sir. I hadn't noticed. I just assumed that we would finish what we started."

I'm not really sure what Juarez said after that. I only knew that there was nothing but trouble ahead for my men. I saluted the idiot and went to the hospital to see Ali and the Doc. Twenty-one was there too. I gave them all the bad news. They took it better than I had.

"When?" Ali said finally.

"I don't know," I answered. "I guess whenever they get us some transportation. The new guys probably know already. None of them looked too happy."

"Yah," he said. "I guess we should tell our boys."

He walked away purposefully. I stopped him.

"No, Ali. That's my job. I'll tell them tonight after dinner. I don't want any of you guys to say anything. Just round them up in their tent at 1800 hours." I owed them that much. I left the hospital and returned to our quarters to call Jerry one last time.

Jerry was getting sick and tired of hearing from me. I could tell by the way he screamed. He didn't give me a chance to get a word in edgewise.

"Look, Larry, I've told you all week long, there's nothing you can do. They are Iraqi's. Nobody in his right mind is going to take an Iraqi into their country, let alone forty of them. Do you have any idea how the people would feel about that? They'd hang any politician that even suggested it. Now read my lips. They go back to Iraq. There's no place else for them. Everybody else is against them. Iraq has no friends...except you... and Jordan."

"Who's Jordan?"

"Not who... what."

"What?"

"The country, Larry, the country... Jordan is the only country that didn't get into this little shindig."

"Jordan?"

"Yes, Larry, Jordan. They've been acting as a sort of a mouthpiece for Hussein, you know, telling the world his side of the story..."

"I thought that was being done by the television crews."

Jerry's laugh was sardonic. But then he seemed to lose his bite. "I wish there was something I could do for you, Larry. But you've got to be a big boy about this. Sometimes things just don't work out. It's like falling in love. Sometimes only one person falls in love. It hurts to find out that you can't have the one person you love the most, because they don't love you."

I knew that Jerry was speaking from experience. Well, I knew Jerry... I don't suppose he knew how close his cock-eyed analogy was to hitting home.

But still, he'd given me an idea. As it turned out it wasn't a very good idea. At least it didn't seem like a very good idea when it blew up in my face, but... There I go again. I'm getting ahead of myself.

"Jerry, does the United States have an embassy in Jordan?"

"I think so, Larry, why?"

"Nothin', I was just trying to think about where I might be able to see the guys again... you know, after the war?"

"Forget 'em, Larry. They won't even know who you are ten days from now. And you've got bigger problems. Remember that club of yours in New York. If it doesn't start to turn a profit, you're going to lose it, just like the guy who lost it to you."

"He lost it in a poker game. I won that place."

"And all the Accounts Payable too if I recall correctly. He was trying to lose. He wanted out. You didn't win anything. I'm your Lawyer, Larry, remember?"

"You're also the guy who talked me into becoming a reservist. I wouldn't be in this mess now if I hadn't listened to you."

"But you have to admit that the money you made in the reserves is the only reason you've been able to keep that place open and eat too. Don't be coy with me, Larry. This little war came along just when you needed it. If it hadn't been for Mr. Hussein, you'd have lost the club by now. Now, thanks to being over here full-time, you might even be able to make a go of it... but you can't afford to go flying off to Jordan to have a reunion with a bunch of guys who won't even bother to show up."

"You're wrong there, Jerry. You don't know these guys..."

"I know you though, Larry, and I know what you can afford and what you can't. Now, my advice to you is put those guys on the next bus out to Baghdad."

Have I told you that I hate lawyers?

I called Rawlings in to my tent and asked him to get the keys for the bus and gas it up. Then I got my maps out.

GOIN' OVER JORDAN

When Rawlings got back with the bus I invited him into my tent and asked him what the hell had been happening since I'd last seen them. Rawlings was wearing my stripes, I had made it to Juarez's old rank, and Juarez had jumped to Major. None of these promotions seemed to have been inspired or deserved. I was wondering what Juarez had done to make Major.

"He saved the oil from being blown up, sir," Rawlings explained. "Leastways that's what he told them reporters. I guess the brass had to acknowledge that after the thing hit the television."

"You mean he told them he stopped Al... that kid from setting the oil off?"

"That's right, sir," Rawlings smiled. "Only by the time he told them about it, that kid was a six foot commando threatening to blow the place with a hand grenade. He evidently done hand to hand combat to stop him."

"That son of a bitch!"

"By that you would mean the Major, sir?"

"Precisely."

"I agree, sir."

Ali picked this time to return to the tent. Rawlings eyed him suspiciously, especially when he threw himself onto his cot and seemed to fall asleep. He'd had a hard day at the beach.

"Pardon me, sir, but isn't that the wog from the docks?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean the six foot commando? No, he's dead... he was shot by an Iraqi soldier that night. This fellow looks a lot like him, but he's my Kuwaiti translator. His name is Ali... Ali Baba."

Ali lifted his head and smiled at Rawlings. "Us Arabs all look alike," he said, then dropped back onto the pillow.

Rawlings left confused. This was a natural state of mind for him. As soon as he'd gone Ali was up on one elbow.

"You're up to something," he said.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Those maps, for one thing... sending soldier boy there to gas up the bus for another... What are you up to, Larry?"

"I don't suppose you would believe me if I told you that I really don't know yet?"

"I don't know. Why don't you try me?"

"All right," I said, putting down my calipers and turning to face him. I put on my most honest and earnest expression. "I really don't know yet, Ali."

He looked at me and I saw his brow furrow. His head nodded a couple of times. "You were right. I don't believe you," he said.

"Do you have any idea how far one of those buses can go on a full tank?" I asked.

"How far do you want to go, Larry?"

"I was thinking about a trip to Amman."

"Jordan? Why?"

"Because, as I see it, Jordan is the only other place where we might be welcome. I thought it might be worth a try. Once things quieted down we could make a try for the States. At least in Jordan you would be free men."

"But you wouldn't, Larry. You would be court-martialed."

"Only if they caught me," I reasoned.

"They'd catch you, Larry. You're not that good without somebody like me looking after you. Your life would be ruined."

"I was just talking to my lawyer, Ali. He just finished pointing out to me that I don't have a whole lot to lose. I could stay in Jordan with you. We ought to be able to sell the bus. If not we can convert it into a recreation vehicle and live in it. What do you think?"

"I think you've been out in the sun too long." He smiled. "I guess you were telling the truth about not knowing what you're doing." He laid back on his bed. "Let me know when you do come up with a plan." He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow.

It was disconcerting to say the least. Ali should have been more enthusiastic. There were no other alternatives. I had exhausted them all with Jerry on the phone. Of course it was risky. We would have to cross the Nefud desert to reach Jordan without going into Iraq. I didn't know how the bus would hold up to a trip of that length, through terrain that was at best unpredictable and at worst impassable. The chances were that the bus would not make the trip in a straight line the way I had drawn it on the map. The chances of finding fuel on the desert were even worse. We would probably end up on foot. But even with all these problems facing us I had expected a more positive response from Ali. It was so completely unlike him that I had to start thinking along another line to understand why he didn't want me to take them to Jordan. In the end it was really very simple. He didn't want me to get into trouble.

At 1800 hours I walked into the barracks tent and asked the men to gather round. They were all waiting with expectant faces. They had been told that I was coming with news. They were afraid it might not be good. They had reason to fear.

I laid it on the line for them and let them know that the repatriation would begin very soon. It was quiet in the tent except for my voice and Ali's translation. I told them that I had done my best for them, but that the prisoner exchange program had been agreed to on March third and there was nothing we could do about it.

I looked at Ali. Then I started telling them about Jordan. He wouldn't translate. The men who spoke English looked at him and wondered why he had stopped. I asked for another volunteer. Twenty-one stepped forward, but he wasn't speaking Arabic. He was talking to me in English.

"Boss, that's the dumbest idea we've ever heard," he said. "They'd send you to prison for the rest of your life."

"Don't worry about me," I said. "I'll be all right." I then went on to explain the advantages of the flight to Jordan and ended with a promise that I would personally sponsor each and every one of them into the States as soon as I could make the arrangements back home.

"You mean after you get out of jail," Ali sneered.

"Will you let me worry about that?" I said.

"Ali," the Doc said, "Do you not remember what I told you about your life having a purpose? Do you not think that Larry's could also have one?"

"Yah, sure," Ali answered. "Breaking rocks at Sing Song..."

"That's Sing Sing," I corrected... then wondered why I had bothered.

"But perhaps this is his purpose. Would you deny him the opportunity to fulfill it?"

"Nothing personal, Doc," Ali answered, "but how long do you think you'd survive on the desert if the bus did break down?"

"I might die," the Doc returned. "But at least I would die trying for a better life. Have you been away from your homeland so long that you have forgotten what it is like to live in a land where you can be killed because you learned too much? Or perhaps that was not a problem for you."

Ali shot a look at the Doc that would have killed if looks could. But he kept his tongue still.

"Tell me now, Ali, have you forgotten how you pleaded with Larry to take your body home with him if you died. Why would a Kuwaiti do that?"

Ali stormed from the tent. Doc turned his sights on Twenty-one. "Does your mother know about the games you like to play?" he asked. Twenty-one shrank back onto the cot behind him.

Five stood up. "When do we leave, Larry?" Evidently Abdul figured the Doc would get to him next.

"It'll have to be tonight," I said. "We're going to need a distraction around midnight as far away from the main gate as possible."

I heard Twenty-one's voice begin to translate.

I found Ali in our tent which was just outside the compound. He looked sullen. I smiled at him.

"I'm sorry, Larry," he said. "The Doc was right. I was only thinking of myself. I hadn't even thought about you or the rest of the guys. I just didn't want to blow my chance of going home with you."

"You don't have to come with us, Ali. But I wouldn't stay here either if I were you. Why don't you hitch a ride into Riyadh and go see Jerry. I'll give you a note for him and tell him to look after you until I get back..."

"Who are you trying to kid? You won't be coming back..." He shook his head. "I hitched my wagon to a falling star, didn't I, Larry?"

I couldn't answer that. My life had been a series of ups and downs. Sometimes I felt like a toilet seat at a mixed party. Most days, when I wake up, I have to check my bank book to know if it's worthwhile getting out of bed.

I smiled at him again. If we did stick together the kid was in for a bumpy ride.

"One way or another, Ali, I'll be back," I said. "I promised you that we'd be together, and I don't break my promises. But I made a promise to those other guys too. I can't just forget about that. They need me now. They need me tonight. There's no telling when the bus will arrive to take them back to Baghdad. Tomorrow might be too late for them. You can see that can't you? You'll be safe with Jerry. You have your i.d. But... god, I'm gonna miss you."

"I don't believe in God..." He was in my arms.

"So you keep saying..." His breath was hot and wet on my shoulder. His body was convulsing with sobs... but so was mine. I couldn't believe that we were saying goodbye. I don't think that he could either. We both knew the chances of me getting back across the Nefud... that is if I made it to Amman in the first place.

I parked him on his cot and sat down to write the letter to Jerry. In it I assigned my wages to Ali and gave him power of attorney on my bank account. I asked him to look after the young man and take him to the States, if possible. I pointed out that he had Kuwaiti citizenship and had served me well during his time in my employ. I supposed that we should have a witness. There was one at the main gate. He was guarding it. I took the letter out and Rawlings signed it for me. I guessed that would satisfy Jerry.

I put the letter into our knapsack along with the rest of our money and a fresh change of underwear.

"Give me your hand," I said as he prepared to depart.

"Which one do you want?" he sniffed.

"The left one..."

He held his hand out and I clasped it. Then before he could protest I slipped my watch over our hands and onto his wrist. My father had given me that watch. Ali had always admired it.

He hugged me and I kissed him deeply in the privacy of our tent, then to make the story stand up I pushed him through the door of the tent and onto his ass in front of Rawlings.

"Filthy little wog! Get the fuck out of here! If I ever see you around here again I'll turn you over to the Iraqi's. I hear they like boys like you!"

The look of shock on Ali's face was real. The shame was real too, but it would wear off. He pulled himself to his feet and scurried up the hill. I hated myself. And I wondered if I would ever see him again.

"Trouble, sir?" Rawlings asked stepping away from his post.

"The little son of a bitch tried to blow me," I said watching the white robes fade into the darkness.

"Filthy little wog..." Rawlings agreed. He returned to his post and I went back into my tent... and bawled like a baby.

Doc worked a miracle at midnight. Twenty-one delivered it. The forty sleeping Iraqi's in the tent by the latrines gave us our distraction. They thought they were being gassed.

In reality, they were... but it was not nerve gas that the Doc had concocted, it was a stink bomb, and good old Twenty-one lobbed it right into the middle of their tent.

The confusion and screaming woke the soldiers who were rushed in by Juarez. He himself led the charge and directed the men while I took over guard duty at the gate. I counted forty naked bodies as they streaked past, then I closed the gate and fixed the lock in place. That in itself wouldn't hold them long, but the wad of gum I had worked into the keyhole might give us an extra minute or two.

The men were naked because I had been able to see Ali's robes a long way off. Since my men all wore whites, there was a good chance that they too would have been seen whereas their tans wouldn't. They dressed on the bus, which was parked at the top of the hill. I released the emergency brake and coasted backwards until the camp was out of sight. Then I started her up. She was awfully noisy.

"Sound off," I called when we were finally on the highway.

"One," One answered.

"Two," Two shouted... well you get the idea. With the lights off it was hard to be sure we had everybody. I listened to the men. They knew the order by now. I was relieved to hear each voice in turn and felt good when Forty said, "Forty."

"Forty-one," a familiar voice breathed into my right ear. If there had been a ditch we would have been in it.

"Ali!"

"Does this bus go all the way to New York?" he asked.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"You can't keep a good wog down. You'd be lost without me, Larry."

He was right, of course. But that didn't stop me from being upset.

"I wanted you to be safe."

"I feel safe whenever I'm with you, Larry. I don't want to be anywhere except where you are."

"You're crazy, you know?"

"Uh-huh."

"We probably won't make it."

"So what? We'll be together. That's the main thing. Turn left here."

"Twenty-one's navigating."

"I know a short cut. Left... here... You're not the only one who knows maps."

"But there's no road, Ali."

"There will be... left, Larry."

I turned left and we bumped out across a hard level plain. Ali reached over and switched off the lights. There was a crescent moon and a billion stars. It was enough to see by. Hell, there wasn't a road anyway, just a direction. About an hour after we had turned off the highway Ali's promised road appeared. But Ali was at the back of the bus then, watching for signs of pursuit. We bumped onto the road and picked up speed.

I can only piece together what happened back at Camp Whatchamacallit from conversations I had later with Rawlings and some of the other men. There was a lot of confusion, of course, but that was the way we had planned it.

The other group of Iraqi prisoners really and truly believed that they were going to die. That's one of the side effects of propaganda. A small area of your brain is filled with information that you can't get rid of. It's sort of like a television commercial. No matter how stupid the jingle is, you remember it when you see the product. You don't think about it all the time, but when something triggers it, the effect is immediate, and with gas, the terror is complete.

Some of those men were hurt in the stampede to get out of there. We didn't want that to happen... but it did.

Juarez's men pulled on their masks as soon as they got a whiff. This made it more difficult for them to see, and naturally they were a little nervous, especially when forty Iraqi prisoners of war came at them trying to get their masks. We hadn't thought about that.

What saved the day was a rather smallish Iraqi P.O.W. who had been trampled in the crowd. His cries for help somehow managed to make it through the other noise and Rawlings heard him. He ran into the tent and picked the guy up and carried him to the hospital.

That made everybody stop and think. Surely, if the gas had been poisonous, the Iraqi would have been dead. He'd been exposed to it the longest. Everybody seemed to calm down a little and Juarez sent for Doc to come and have a look at the injured men. That was when the shit hit the fan. The soldier reported back that Doc was gone. He also mentioned that the entire tent seemed to be empty. Juarez immediately smelled a rat. I'll give him that... he knew what they smelled like.

When they got to the gate and tried their key, they discovered my gum stash. This caused Juarez to lose his cool and he grabbed one of the guns to shoot the lock off. I don't know if you've ever tried to shoot something as unsteady as a lock hanging off a gate, but let me tell you it isn't as easy as it looks. The first bullet grazed the lock and ricocheted through the windshield of Juarez's jeep. This made him really mad and he ordered somebody to hold the lock steady, but fortunately for the rest of the men, they were no longer attending. They knew that the war was over and they did not want to take a bullet regardless of whose gun it might have come from, or what it might have passed through or bounced off previously.

It took Juarez three more rounds before the lock surrendered. By this time, however, the bus was booting across the plain in what we thought was a south-west direction, and one of the three jeeps had a flat tire. We had a good start on them.

That didn't stop Juarez from giving chase. He hopped into his jeep and yelled an order. The other jeep quickly filled and set out in the night to follow him. The remaining men herded the Iraqi's into the tent my men had vacated earlier. Then they tried to find another lock for the gate.

We stopped the bus at sunrise in the shelter of a huge rock face. Our plan was simple. We would drive in the dark and try to find someplace to hide during the day.

We laid our maps out on a ledge of rock and tried to agree on where we were. There were as many different opinions as there were people. We got a clue from the sun. It was still coming up in the east and going down in the west, so we decided to watch where it went and follow it.

There was water at our rest stop, and we refilled our bottles and topped the radiator of the bus. But it wasn't water I was worried about. We had two more days of travel ahead of us and the fuel gauge was already down to half. I must have looked worried because Ali asked me what the problem was.

"To be absolutely honest," I told him, "we're running out of gas."

"Is that all?" he grinned.

"That's everything!" I said. "Without gas we'll be stuck in the desert. We have absolutely no idea where we are and we don't know what we're going to run into out there."

"Relax, Larry," he said taking my hand and guiding me to the side of the bus. He pulled the luggage hatch open and lifted it. "Will these help?"

There were four petrol cans tied into the cavity. They were full too.

"Where the hell did you get those?"

"One came from the truck. The other three were in the jeeps. I didn't think you would think to take them. You were too busy trying to figure out where you were going."

"But how did you get them?"

"Very quietly... I came back after you threw me out."

"That was a risky thing to do, Ali. Those robes of yours reflect the light."

"I didn't wear them."

"Great minds think alike."

I kissed him.

"Please, Larry, not in front of the men..."

We topped the gas tank and still had spare fuel. I led Ali to the shade of the rocks and we found a place where we could sleep the day away. Soon he was breathing shallow regular breaths that told me he was asleep. His head was on my chest and I thanked God that he was back with me. Yah, I prayed. Wouldn't you?

I guess it was about then that Juarez and his men were parking at the top of a bluff that overlooked the desert. They had a vantage point that gave them a panorama. Nothing could move without them being able to see it. Unfortunately for them there was nothing moving. They knew this for a fact. They watched the desert not move all day. Along about four o'clock they decided it might be a good idea to refuel the jeeps. That was when they discovered that they had no spare fuel.

Juarez began to rant again. They radioed for somebody to bring them some gas. Then they siphoned the remaining fuel from the other jeep into Juarez's vehicle and he set out alone to reconnoitre while his men followed his progress and watched for anything moving.

After a while they saw something. It was on towards dusk that they noticed it. It was so big that they really couldn't miss it. We saw it too, and we climbed aboard the bus and took our bearings. They would be the last bearings we would get for a while as the sandstorm swallowed us. We figured it would be a good idea to keep going. The road was still visible most of the time. When we couldn't see it we kept on it by feel. If our wheels strayed to one side or the other the roughness of the shoulder was easy to feel and correct. Of course there were some blind sections that made us slow up and there was one spot where I'd thought I'd lost the road completely, but just when I thought I was going to have to stop and backtrack a signpost loomed in front of me and I ran it over, but I managed to get back on the road.

We knew that Juarez was somewhere behind us. We'd heard him on the radio. We figured, however, that the sandstorm would stop him. He was in an open jeep while we were in a closed bus. I hadn't counted on one thing, though. I'd really pissed him off.

Juarez had been directed to our location by the soldiers on the ridge. Then they had lost him in the sandstorm and had needed to take cover themselves when the winds overtook their location. The bus left very little in the way of a trail, but we were on the only road in the area. You really couldn't call it much of a road. It was just a trail across the desert where traffic had hardened the crust and worn it into a rut. Juarez set his wheels into it and followed us. In reality he was just covering territory... just trying to keep up. He didn't expect to catch us and it surprised the hell out of him when he had to slam on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the bus.

It was stopped in the middle of the road.

He drew his sidearm and dug himself out of the jeep. The bus was still running. It loomed like a building in front of him. He felt his way cautiously along the side and approached the driver's window with his weapon at the ready. Then he leapt around to the front of the bus and pointed the gun at the windshield. But the bus was empty.

That was when he felt the barrel of the Iraqi rifle touch his neck.

I was already handcuffed to the Iraqi jeep. The driver had been just about to take off when he got the call to wait... that there was another one. They marched Juarez past my forty-one prisoners who were sitting in the road with their hands over their heads answering questions and trying to establish their identities. They made the Major and I share a pair of handcuffs.

"Welcome to Iraq," I said. I don't know why I said it. Perhaps it was the relief I felt. Everything was out of my hands now.

"Where are they taking us?" Juarez asked when he had finally figured out what had happened to him.

"Baghdad," I said. "They think we're spies."

"How do you know that?"

"A six foot Iraqi commando told me."

The jeep took off and made conversation impossible, but that didn't stop Juarez from telling me exactly what he thought of me. I wasn't paying attention though. I was watching a white form in the middle of the road in the desert. Ali had his hands on his head like the rest of them, but seemed to be sitting up straighter and gesticulating with his elbows. I saw him look at the jeep when it pulled away. There was a look on his face that I had only seen once before, and that had been on the dock in Kuwait when I'd pulled my knife and he had thought he was going to die. He mouthed something to me. There was no hope of my hearing it of course, but I think I got his message.

He didn't die... either time. My boys were all declared heroes and paraded through downtown Baghdad. Juarez and I were in the parade too. Then we were taken to the army base and locked in the brig.

At last I had time to think. I thought about my life and how it had come to the point it had, how I had been drifting aimlessly until I had fished Ali out of the oil and fallen in love with him. After that my life had had a purpose, a direction. Ali was my rudder. But even he couldn't steer me right. I was a fuck-up... just like Juarez said I was... just like he kept telling me every single day of our captivity.

We had adjoining cells. That meant that he could keep up an almost constant harangue. I know that it annoyed the guards. I shut him out. I had my memories and they kept me sane through the two weeks that we served in those little miserable cells.

My favourite memory was the afternoon we spent together on the desert. I did not sleep. I couldn't with Ali there. I studied his face and memorized his features. I could draw him... if I could draw. Even now I can close my eyes and see him lying there beside me in his filthy white robes that I had given him. His naked feet were filthy too. He'd been mucking about a lot after I threw him out of the tent, taking care of the odds and ends like he always did.

He woke up and caught me staring at his feet again. This always embarrassed him. He worked them up into his robe and punched me in the gut.

"When we get to New York City I want you to buy me a pair of shoes," he ordered. "Real shoes, Larry. Then you won't have to look at my ugly feet again."

"But I like looking at your feet," I protested.

"You're weird, Larry. I suppose that's why I love you."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you love me, Ali?"

"Of course I do. I told you I did, didn't I?"

"Not until just now. You never said it before."

"I didn't?"

"Nope, most of the time you never said nothing. Every time we had sex you stopped talking."

"I thought you liked it like that..."

"Sure I did..."

"I thought you knew..."

"I suppose I did, but you never said it before."

"Well, from now on I will say it every day. I love you, Larry."

"I love you too, Ali. Promise me that you will never leave me."

"I promise."

"Let me see your feet."

"Fuck off!"

I never did see his feet again.

IRAQ

IRAQ AND RUIN

Juarez and I made a video three days after we got to the army base... well, he made a video. They had me there to prove that... actually I'm not sure what they were trying to prove... but they had me there too. It might have been to balance out the scene. They certainly didn't want me for my looks. By then I wasn't looking too good. Well, neither was Juarez, but he looked better than I did. He had told them what they wanted to hear.

I wasn't sure what they wanted, but by then I wasn't talking anyway. I accepted what they did to me because I deserved it. I didn't deserve it for the reasons they thought I did. I deserved it because I had failed forty-one men. The least I could do now was protect them now that they were back in Iraq. What the soldiers did to me wasn't important. I couldn't tell them the truth, so I told them nothing. Besides, the truth wasn't what they wanted to hear.

I suppose you saw the video on television. I never saw it, nor do I want to. Let's just say it wasn't the high point of my life.

It made it into every Iraqi home though. They made sure of that. The war might have been over, but here was proof that the Americans were not content. They wanted more and were secretly invading Iraq even as the peace negotiations proceeded.

That's what Juarez confirmed in his statement. At least I'm told he did. I was thinking about something else at the time. I was thinking about Ali. I wanted to get a message to him somehow and my stupid clouded brain never realized that I was being presented with the perfect opportunity to let him know that I was okay. It was almost too late when I realized that the video tape they were shooting was for propaganda. When I did realize it I knew instantly that there was just one message I could deliver. My lips formed the same message to him that he had mouthed to me as he sat in the road with his hands on his head.

The interrogator saw me do it and misinterpretted it as a sign that I was trying to speak, perhaps to add something to Juarez's confession. He asked me if I wanted to say something. I shook my head. But from then until they turned off the tape, I never looked away from the camera.

Ali got my message. He knew it was for him. Well, it couldn't have been for anyone else. He was the only person I'd ever told that I loved.

Naturally he didn't visit. Nobody did. Juarez and I were isolated. We saw no one but our guards. The guards didn't speak English. We couldn't ask them for anything, but that didn't stop Juarez from trying.

I didn't need much. I could have used some paper and a pencil, but the guards stubbornly refused to understand what I was requesting.

I wanted to write a letter to my parents. I had to tell them that I was all right. I wanted to ask them to send Ali some assistance any way they could. I wanted them to know what we had been through... well, not everything, mind you, but the parts that I could talk about in mixed company. I wanted them to love him too and not to judge a nation only by its leader. I wanted them to know that I'd found a god of sorts in the desert who gave peace during times of trouble, and didn't demand any specific religious affiliation or ritualistic sacrifice.

But I had no paper.

I set myself, instead, to remember every event of the week and a half that I knew Ali. He kept me sane when I could have lost it the way Juarez seemed to be doing. See, Juarez had made a bargain with the Iraqi's. They said they would send him back in return for his confession, but they didn't. Instead they told him that we would be tried as spies. When he protested that we weren't spies they told him that they had the evidence they needed... his videotaped confession.

All of my men saw the tape. Doc recorded it. Twenty-one sobbed bitterly when he saw it and raised suspicions about himself in the cafe where he watched.

Abdul was at his parents' house preparing for his wedding when the tape was first broadcast. His family watched with him and were moderately surprised when he left the room for an hour of quiet contemplation.

Ali was standing in front of an appliance store window adjusting his uniform in the glass of the window when he saw my face behind Juarez's talking head. He couldn't hear what Juarez was saying, but he'd never listened to Juarez before, so it didn't make any difference.

He got my message. I guess that's when he came up with the idea that he and the boys should have a reunion. Anyhow that's when he decided to look up the Doc.

Ali limped into the Doc's office twenty minutes after he saw me on television.

"What's the matter with you?" Doc asked

"Aw it's these damned shoes. Do you remember telling me that you thought my life had a purpose?" he asked.

"Don't tell my you're finally realizing that, Ali," the Doc answered.

"I just figured out what it is," Ali confirmed.

Doc looked at Ali. Then he did a quick survey of his shabby office. "This has something to do with Larry, hasn't it?"

Ali smiled. "Allah be praised. How did you guess?"

"Hmm," Doc observed, " Allah too? Why do I get the feeling that I'm in trouble?"

Ali had gone to Doc because Doc was the most methodical man in the group. Ali himself had never thought to make notes, but Doc had kept records of our time together and had prepared a list with forty names on it and each name had a line of information about the person who owned the name, and the best way that person could be reached.

They were going over the list when there was a knock on the door.

Doc slipped the list of names into a file folder, shoved a thermometer into Ali's mouth and sat him on his examining table. Then he opened the door. Twenty-one walked in. His eyes were red.

"We gotta do something, Doc."

"Two down, thirty-eight to go," Doc answered. "Do you have a plan?"

"I do," Ali took the thermometer out of his mouth and nodded to Twenty-one. "But we're going to need everybody... Do you suppose we should call them, or just wait for them to show up?"

"We'd better call," Doc advised. "My office isn't that large. Will we require another stink bomb, Ali?"

"No, but we will need your particular expertise... and a truck."

The round up proceeded apace. Each man in turn was contacted. Each man was told of Ali's plan. Each man threw his hands up in the air and said that Ali was crazy and they would all be killed. Then each man in turn agreed to be there. They all showed up too.

My men, of course, were not the only ones in Iraq to see the video. It was aired on the seventh day of our captivity after it had been edited and approved for broadcast. By the time my boys saw it and got together as a group to discuss Ali's latest brush with insanity, another man was making his way to Baghdad. His name was Mohammed and he was freshly back from Kuwait. He walked now with a cane and a limp, the result of a war injury, he said, but when asked to elaborate, he refused to be too specific.

On his third day in Baghdad he did manage to get an interview with the commander of the camp where Juarez and I were being held. He asked for permission to interview me. He said that he thought he could get a confession out of me. The commander sent him away with the promise that his request would be considered. Three days later it was granted. When asked what time he would like to interview me, Mohammed became a little melodramatic and requested that the interview take place at midnight. When asked why midnight, he replied that there was a psychological advantage to waking a man up in the middle of the night. His request was granted.

That's when my chickens came home to roost.

I knew there was something out of the ordinary happening when my cell door opened. It opened at the wrong time of day. I wished that I had my watch. It would have made it easier to keep track of what part of the day we were in. The lights in our cells were kept on at all times. There were no windows. We were in the middle of a building somewhere and the only time pieces we had were our biological clocks and the changing guard. Meals provided a clue, although sometimes the guards played with our pumpkins by giving us the wrong meal... you know, breakfast when you're expecting dinner... that sort of thing...

I guess what I'm saying is that I really wasn't surprised by the time of Mohammed's arrival, but I noticed it was a little late.

Of course, the guards rushing in, stripping me and tying me down to the bed naturally sparked my curiosity. Then I saw Mohammed and knew that I was in trouble.

"Your name is Lawrence St. Laurent," he said as the guards squeezed past him and shut the door behind them. I heard the key turn in the lock.

"My friends call me Larry..."

"I am not your friend."

"Then I take it this is not a social call."

"No," he answered, "this is a retribution."

"Do you expect me to confess?"

"No," he laughed. It was the first time I'd seen him smile. He was missing a few teeth. I hoped that the butt of my gun had been responsible for their loss. His smile turned into a sneer. "I expect you to die. I expect that it will take a while though. I also expect that I will enjoy it."

I imagined that he would. He started slowly enough. He removed a length of rawhide from his jacket pocket and wrapped it around my nuts. The other end he tied to the foot of the cot. I winced when he pulled it tight, but I tried not to give him the pleasure of hearing me cry out in pain.

"I will let you enjoy the feeling for a while," he told me, "however before you die you will lose them." He pulled a straight razor from his shirt and opened it. "But before the operation we must shave you."

I winced once more as he wielded the blade in such close proximity to my penis. He was no better a barber than I had been when I'd shaved him.

I heard a guard's voice outside my cell door. It was challenging someone and a relaxed familiar voice answered it. I wished again that I had studied Arabic. I wanted to know what Doc was doing in the prison. Whatever he was doing, I hoped that he would be quick about it. I was bleeding from several cuts already and I didn't want to end my days as a woman.

There was a muffled cry outside my door and I heard something fall. Mohammed heard it too. He stepped away and peered through the open slot. He must have seen something because he challenged whoever was out there. Seconds later the door opened and Twenty-one stepped in. He was carrying a rifle. He looked at me.

"Hi, Boss. I see you're still into kinky sex."

"You should talk..." I smirked. Twenty-one glanced at Mohammed.

"Is this guy your barber?"

Mohammed eyed him suspiciously and Twenty-one busted a few more of his teeth with the butt end of his gun. Then he used his razor to cut my nuts free.

"Hi, Larry." It was the first time I'd seen Ali in uniform. "Sorry it took us so long to get here." He was on his knees untying me. Then he helped me dress.

"You guys are crazy," I said. "How in hell did you manage to get through the security?"

"Doc took care of that," Ali grinned.

"How are we going to get out?"

Ali reached up and kissed me. "The same way we got in. C'mon."

We left Mohammed tied up in my cot. We didn't stick anything up his ass though. We didn't have time. Ali led me out and down the hall. We were almost out of the holding cell area when I remembered Juarez.

"Let's leave him," Ali suggested. "The Iraqi's deserve him."

"Ali, you're an Iraqi too," I reminded him.

"Kuwaiti," he corrected and held up my knapsack.

"We have to take him, baby." I'd used the term of endearment many times with Ali, but it felt strange using it to a man dressed in the Iraqi army uniform. "We got him into this mess. We have to get him out."

Ali took the keys from Twenty-one and headed back. It was the first time I'd noticed the body lying on the floor. It was the guard.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"No, just asleep," Twenty-one answered.

"Where's Juarez?" Ali called. Almost immediately a voice answered from the cell next to Mohammed's. Ali unlocked the door.

Juarez pushed his way out and looked around.

"What the fuck's going on?" he asked.

"Just shut up and follow me," Ali said. "You're being rescued."

"Are you guys the special forces?" Juarez asked.

"Yah," Ali answered. "Real special..."

Ali took point and led us up the hall to the first security point. We walked through it past the officer on duty. He fell in behind us as we passed.

"Hi, Larry," he said. I looked back over my shoulder.

"Hi Forty. Do you work here?"

"No, man. I was just filling in for somebody tonight." He smirked.

At the next checkpoint I noticed a pair of feet lying on the floor. Five stepped out from behind the counter and joined Forty. I began to see how we were going to get out. I even thought that it might work.

"Whose idea was this, anyway, Abdul?"

"Ali's," he answered, "but don't worry, we improved it. By the way, Larry, I'm supposed to be getting married tomorrow. I'd invite you to come, but I don't think any of us are going to be too welcome when they find you gone."

"What the fuck's going on?" Juarez asked.

"Whose idea was it to bring him?" Abdul asked.

"Larry's," Ali and Twenty-one answered in unison.

"You'd better shut up, Major," I warned.

"Who are these guys," Juarez asked ignoring my advice as usual.

"They used to be your prisoners," I told him.

"And will be again, with any luck," Twenty-one added.

"You mean they actually are Iraqi's?"

"I'm Kuwaiti," Ali said over his shoulder. "I've got papers."

We reached another check point and picked up another two escorts. I recognized Ten and Twenty-nine. They smiled wide smiles and fell in behind Abdul and Djamal. There was an Iraqi soldier asleep at a desk.

"What did you use? Knockout drops?" I speculated.

"That's a trade secret," Doc answered. "Ali, you're limping again."

"It's these stupid boots, Doc."

"I'll order you some orthopedic shoes tomorrow," Doc mused. Then he remembered what it was he was doing. "Do you suppose they'll accept my prescriptions in Saudi Arabia?"

"I know one thing for sure," Twenty-one commented wryly, "they won't accept them in Iraq anymore."

A nervous laugh swept through our parade.

"You could always go barefoot, Ali," I suggested.

"Will you stop that?" he complained.

"Stop what?" Doc asked.

We reached the front of the building and Doc's question went unanswered. We would have to go outside now. There were real soldiers out there with real guns and real bullets. What I didn't realize as I stepped out with four more soldiers behind me was that the majority of the soldiers hanging around outside were my men. We all converged on a truck and everybody hopped up inside. Ali sat beside me on the floor of the box and I put my arm around his shoulder. I felt his familiar arm about my waist. In the darkness I heard him catch his breath a few times as he cried silently beside me. I was crying to. I had never expected to feel his touch again. I pulled him closer to me, his head found my chest and he soaked my shirt with his tears.

As we slowed for the main gate three more men jumped onto the truck.

"How many of you guys are there?" I asked.

"All forty-one," Ali's muffled voice said into my chest.

"You mean everybody came?" I buried my face in Ali's hair.

"Lieutenant, did you just kiss that Kuwaiti?" Juarez asked.

"Yes, Major, now do us all a favor and shut the fuck up, or we'll throw you off the truck."

"Can't I do it anyway, Boss?" Twenty-one asked. But I wouldn't let him. Instead he pointed his gun at Juarez and requested that he turn around and face the other way. When Juarez's back was turned Twenty-one smiled, leaned over and kissed me on the lips. "It's good to have you back with us, Boss."

I made a mental note to learn the name of every one of my men. I started with Twenty-one.

"What's your name, Twenty-one?"

He grinned at me.

"I sort of like Twenty-one," he answered.

"No, I want to know your real name," I insisted.

Ali looked up at us and there was a look of anticipation on his face. It made me press poor Twenty-one again.

"Come on, man. Tell me your name."

"I don't like my real name. Can't we just stick with Twenty-one?"

"No." I looked at Ali. "Do you know his name?" I asked.

He grinned and nodded.

"What is it?"

He stretched up and whispered in my ear. When I heard the name I understood its owner's aversion to it. It was the mother of all names. I looked at Twenty-one. He was regarding me nervously. I guess he was afraid that I might actually say the dreaded name aloud.

"You poor bastard," I commiserated. "You're right, we'll stick with Twenty-one."

Twenty-one smiled a weak, grateful smile and turned back to guard his prisoner. I don't suppose that my independent confirmation that his name really sucked made him feel any better about it though.

The truck bounced and swayed through Baghdad, then crossed a bridge with a lot of holes in it and headed south. We had to stop for several patrols and check-points where officers inspected the forged orders requiring the transfer of the prisoner from Baghdad. Four was driving and he was a cool customer. He looked so bored that even Doc, who was in the cab beside him thought for a moment that he didn't know that the orders weren't real. Then he remembered that it had been Four who forged them. None of the patrols bothered to look into the back of the truck. If they had they might have noticed that there were two prisoners instead of one.

Finally the men began to relax. I took this as a sign that the last of the check-points was behind us. I relaxed too as the truck crossed the miles and the North Star told me that we were headed in the right direction. I laid back and dozed with Ali's head on my chest and his familiar form in the crook of my arm. We crossed the Saudi border at about four o'clock in the morning. A cheer went up.

Twenty-one nudged Juarez with the barrel of his gun. Juarez looked over his shoulder.

"Yah? What do you want now?" Juarez asked humorlessly.

Twenty-one handed the gun to the Major. Juarez took it. For a minute there I thought he was going to use it. Then for a second I thought he might be going to smile. Twenty-one clasped his hands onto the top of his head. Juarez sniffed and said, "Cute..." Then he put the gun down and turned to face the back of the truck once more. I guess he had other things on his mind.

Twenty minutes after we crossed into Saudi Arabia I saw something whiz past the back of the truck that made me start thinking. I banged on the cab and told Four to stop. The truck slid to a halt. Then we backed up to the signpost I had demolished at the cross roads just before the Iraqi squad had appeared in the sandstorm.

"What is it, Larry?" Ali asked as I jumped down from the truck. I turned back and helped him down. Twenty-one joined us. I ran to the signpost to be sure that it was the one I had crushed. There was no doubt about it. It now stood about half the height it had been before. It had been speared back into the sand beside the splintered stump where it used to be. You could still see where the bus had dug up the shoulder of the road.

"We didn't invade Iraq," I said. "We were kidnapped."

"What's going on?" Juarez had joined us. I explained the significance of the signpost to him.

"It would seem, Major," I concluded, "that you confessed to something we didn't do. We didn't cross by ourselves. The Iraqi's took us into Iraq."

The men were all off the truck by now. They seemed to be milling about.

"But it's okay, Major. The Iraqi's brought us back out too."

Abdul stepped forward. He laid his gun in the middle of the road and started to remove his uniform. Everybody watched. Beneath his khaki he wore the restaurant whites. Still visible on the breast of the shirt was the number five. He grinned at me and shook my hand. Forty stepped forward and laid his gun beside Abdul's. He too stripped down to his whites, the whites I had bought for him in Riyadh. He took my hand as well. The next man up was Twenty-one.

"I don't have a gun any more, Larry." He jerked his head towards Juarez. "I gave it to him." I couldn't help smiling as he took his clothes off. He was only wearing undershorts until Ali threw him his robes. They had been in my knapsack. He pulled them on gratefully and stuck his hand out. I grabbed it and pulled him to me. We almost destroyed each other's vertabrae. Then he saluted me and I returned it.

The next man up was Four, our driver.

"What's your name?" I asked as he laid his gun with the others. He looked at me peculiarly. Ali translated the question.

"Ahmad," he answered.

"Thank you, Ahmad. Thank you for everything."

Ahmad looked to Ali. Ali translated. Ahmad smiled and said something else. Ali stepped over to him and whispered into his ear. Ahmad came to attention and saluted me.

"You're welcome, Larry." He grinned proudly and ripped off his shirt and pants. He produced a lighter and ignited the uniform. Then he threw it onto the pile with the others.

Each man in turn approached me to lay down his arms and remove his uniform. It reminded me of a demented mass with me as the priest blessing my flock. But I appreciated the ritual and with only a little prompting each one of them spoke to me in English. They told me their names and I did my best to pronounce them when I thanked them for what they had done for me. Juarez witnessed the event, but I doubt that it moved him as much as it did me.

The blaze of the burning uniforms lit up the early morning darkness. It was probably what attracted the border patrol. I know it was what attracted the camera crew from Atlanta who showed up at about the same time as the M.P.'s in the jeep who arrived as the last five or so men were performing the ritual. The M.P.'s seemed to realize that something almost reverent was happening. They held back and waited. The camera crew didn't. They moved right in as Three was telling me that his real name was Farid. The portable light of the camera almost blinded him as he began to unbutton his uniform. He looked at me. I told him that I understood and it was not necessary for him to take his clothes off if he felt embarrassed by the lights. Ali translated. This seemed to satisfy him. He defiantly ripped off his shirt and flung it into the flames. His pants were quick to follow. Farid was really just a boy. I shook his hand like a man, though. Then I saluted him. He snapped to attention and returned the salute. Then he walked briskly away to join the sea of white behind me.

SAUDI ARABIA

HAVE YOU EVER HAD ONE OF THOSE DAYS?

The camera crew recorded the next two men as well and then they found Juarez and asked him what was going on. I didn't hear what he said, but I found out later that he had told them that he wasn't sure, but it looked to him like General MacArthur saying goodbye to his troops. Then he added, "Only this guy shall not return. He'll probably be shot at dawn."

The correspondent asked him what he meant by that. Juarez told him. He was just getting started on a diatribe about my mutinous behaviour when the cameraman unshouldered his machine and drew the reporter to one side. They both looked at Juarez again. Then they both looked at me. The cameraman shouldered his camera again and they moved in on Juarez.

"Major Juarez," the reporter read his name from Juarez's name patch on his shirt, "aren't you the man who was interviewed recently for Iraqi television? Were you not a prisoner of war?"

"I escaped last night. As for the interview, I was forced to read a statement the Iraqi's had prepared. I said nothing that I myself had written."

I didn't remember any script or cue cards and I had been present for the taping.

"Are you not the same Major Juarez who was promoted for having prevented an Iraqi commando from blowing up the docks north of Kuwait?"

"What?" This came from Ali. He had changed into his robes and was now watching the camera crew work. His outburst attracted the cameraman who panned to find him. "He didn't stop me. Larry did."

The reporter turned and brought his microphone in Ali's direction.

"You say you were the one Juarez stopped?"

"I'm the guy who was trying to blow the oil," Ali confirmed, "but Juarez didn't do anything to stop me. It was Larry that did that. Juarez just pissed me off. If I had had a decent flint none of us would be here today."

"Who is Larry?"

"That guy over their shaking hands with that Iraqi. He's your hero... well, he's mine anyway... He saved my life that day... twice..." Ali looked contemptuously at Juarez. "That guy didn't do nothin' but scream at me."

The reporter turned back to Juarez. "Didn't you say that the Iraqi who tried to blow the oil was over six feet tall?" The cameraman nudged him and whispered into his ear. The reporter continued. "Wasn't he supposed to have threatened to use a hand grenade?"

Juarez looked at Ali who pulled himself up to every one of his five feet and three inches.

"There was a lot of oil... Everything was black... I thought he had a hand grenade... It didn't look like a lighter."

"It was a lighter," Ali stated flatly. "Why don't you ask Larry? He was closer to me than you were."

"Is that true, Major Juarez?"

Juarez turned on me. "St. Laurent! I thought you said that the prisoner had been shot by an Iraqi!"

"He was," I answered. "But the Iraqi who shot him didn't have any bullets in the gun he used."

"Who is this guy?" Juarez asked looking straight at Ali. "Didn't you tell me he was a Kuwaiti?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Well, is he?"

"He has papers to prove that he is."

"Well, why the fuck was he trying to blow the oil?"

"You'd have to ask him that, sir."

"Why were you trying to blow the oil?" the reporter asked.

Ali looked confused for the first time. He looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know what to tell him.

"I was trying to commit suicide," he finally admitted quietly. Then he looked up at me. "Larry stopped me. He saved my life and showed me that there are still good reasons to want to live. Larry is my friend. Major Juarez is a liar... and an idiot..."

This last comment did not sit well with Juarez who made for Ali with murder in his eye. He didn't make it all the way though. When he picked himself up out of the sand he looked to see what had tripped him. Twenty-one smiled at him and apologized for having such big feet. He was now standing between Juarez and Ali. Naturally the reporter wanted to know who he was.

"Hi, I'm Twenty-one. I'm from Iraq. Well, all us guys are. We busted Larry out of jail last night and brought him back to Saudi Arabia. Larry made us bring that guy with us. I knew it was a mistake, but we couldn't talk Larry out of it. Larry's the kind of guy who does the right thing... even when it's wrong." Twenty-one got a confused look on his face as he tried to figure out why what he had just said didn't seem to make sense.

"Your name is Twenty-one?" the reporter pursued.

"It is now, yes," Twenty-one confirmed.

"What was it before?"

"I'd rather not say."

"I understand. You want to protect your family in Iraq..."

Twenty-one considered this. "Yah... okay..."

By now all of my men had re-surrendered to me. I had been keeping track of what was going on with the camera crew out of the corner of my eye, but I think you already know how I feel about television. I wasn't too anxious to be on it. But, like it or not, I was next.

"Lieutenant St. Laurent," the reporter began as the dog and pony show moved in my direction, "what were you doing in Iraq?"

There it was. They'd saved the hardest question for me. I squinted at the light and tried to figure out how to explain my actions... where to begin... how much to divulge...

"He was kidnapped," Ali said. The camera swung back to him. "The men and I escaped from Camp Whatchamacallit when Larry told us that everybody would have to be sent back to Iraq. Larry was guarding the gate when the men stormed it. I was responsible for getting the gate open. We had to take Larry hostage or he would have tried to stop us. Major Juarez followed us. He didn't know that we had taken Larry hostage. We didn't have time to leave a note."

"We were headed for Jordan. We thought that we could get from there to the States someday. See, that's really all any of these guys wanted... a chance at a new life. Larry tried to help us get it. But when he couldn't swing it, we decided to take matters into our own hands. So we stole the bus and set out across the Nefud. We would have made it too, if it hadn't been for that stupid sandstorm..."

I was relieved of course that Ali had drawn the cameras away from me. I hate cameras. I looked at Twenty-one. His forehead was a mass of wrinkles as he considered the story Ali was concocting and tried to remember all the details in case somebody asked him to confirm it. Behind him Abdul was translating what Ali said for the men who didn't speak English.

"We got lost and ended up coming across an Iraqi patrol a couple of miles north of here. We were still in Saudi Arabia. It was the Iraqi's who were on the wrong side. I guess they were lost too. But they had guns and there was nothing Larry or any of us could do about it. They took us back to Baghdad. They tortured Larry and Major Juarez until the major agreed to make the video tape. When we saw the tape, we knew that we had to do something. So we went in and got Larry out... we got Juarez too."

The camera lingered on Ali a while until the cameraman realized that he had finished. Then they turned back to me.

"Is that what happened, Lieutenant?" the reporter asked.

I looked at Ali. He stared back hopefully. I looked around at the men in white who surrounded us. They were my friends. They had risked their lives for me. Even now they had no guarantees that they would not be dead by the end of the week if they were shipped back to Iraq. And yet they were trying to protect me.

"No," I said, "that's probably the biggest crock of shit Ali's come up with yet."

"Sheesh, I don't believe this guy." It was Twenty-one of course.

"What did happen, Lieutenant?"

I looked at Juarez. I looked at the M.P.'s. I took another look at Ali.

"The truth is," I said, "it was all my idea. Ali didn't want to have anything to do with it. He told me that just before we left. But he came along anyway when he could have been safe back in Riyadh. I was never a hostage until the Iraqi patrol picked us up. Ali was right about the location, though. The Iraqi's were in Saudi Arabia. We weren't in Iraq."

"He's right about something else, too. All of these men are heroes. If it wasn't for each and every one of them laying their life on the line, Major Juarez and I would still be in prison in Iraq. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would be dead... or horribly mutilated, by now."

"Lieutenant, who are these men?" the reporter asked.

"They're my friends," I said. I heard Juarez grunt with satisfaction. As far as he was concerned I had just slipped the noose around my own neck. I tried not to pay attention to him. "I say that proudly," I added. "They are all good men. They are all prisoners of war as well. They risked their lives for me and the major. If our government sends them back to Iraq it will be committing murder forty times over."

"Lieutenant St. Laurent," the reporter said, "could you tell us how you came to know these men?"

I guess he thought it was a simple question.

The sun was standing high in the desert sky by the time we finished. The M.P.'s had let the reporter and his cameraman do their job for them. They had a pretty good idea of what had happened and they hadn't had to do anything but take notes... and radio for backup. When the other soldiers arrived the M.P.'s approached us and asked me to accompany them. Juarez smirked until they told him he'd have to get in the jeep too.

They let me hug Ali and Twenty-one before I left, but when a line up started to form behind Twenty-one they got a little impatient. They still hadn't had their breakfast. They herded the men back into the Iraqi truck and we started back to Camp Whatchamacallit. Well, my men went there. Our jeep kept going all the way to Riyadh.

My hug on the desert was the last time I ever touched Ali.

Juarez and I were quartered in Riyadh and placed under house arrest until the investigation could be completed. Jerry visited me everyday and advised me legally. But nobody could advise me about how to deal with the depression. There was a television set in the room they gave me. But I was afraid to turn it on. I was afraid that I would see myself holding a gun walking behind an oily little wog between the abandoned vehicles that littered the road north of Kuwait City. I was afraid that there might be news of another sort... news of the exchange of prisoners... my prisoners. I didn't want to know about that. I considered trying to escape... trying to make my way back to Camp Whatchamacallit... stealing another bus and trying again... Then I found myself considering Ali's original option. That was when I knew that I was in trouble... real trouble.

A week went by like that. It was worse than the two weeks I had spent in Baghdad. At least in Baghdad I had been the enemy. Here I was supposed to be on the same side as the people who were doing things that I couldn't accept. It was a relief to be called before the generals.

The room was a boardroom. I was escorted in by two other soldiers and positioned at the end of the boardroom table. The generals and their aides were seated at the other end and along the sides. Jerry was there. So was Colonel Hadford.

I couldn't meet his eyes. I had used him, and now he knew it. It was difficult for me to find a place in all of the other problems I had caused for so many other people who had trusted me, but I managed to fit my regrets about the way I had treated the colonel in among all the other screw ups. I caught a look at him out of the corner of my eye, though. He didn't look angry. He has that kind of face. I guess you'd call it a poker face... always the same.

"I want to start off by saying at the outset that the only reason that we are not recommending that you be court-martialed and shot is that your commander was one of the biggest assholes in the service," the head general began. "That being said, I want to ask that my previous comments be stricken from the permanent record of these proceedings."

They ran the tapes back and restarted the machines.

"Lieutenant St. Laurent, we have heard your side of the story already. We have heard from the other witnesses. Your entire squad has been interviewed and confirms the highly unorthodox way you seemed to have handled... the situation. What we want to know now is if you have anything further to add... anything we don't know about?"

"I have nothing to say, sir, other than to request once more that some provision be made for the Iraqi men who risked their lives to save mine... and Major Juarez's."

"Private..."

"Yes, sir?"

"No, not you, Lieutenant... Juarez. He was stripped of his rank. He is now a private. He was shipped back to the States yesterday. Don't you watch television, man?"

"Actually, no..."

"Well, it seems that you are in a minority, Lieutenant. Everybody else seems to..."

"Sir?"

"...watch television, son. Everybody Stateside seems to, anyway. You've become quite popular Stateside. So we've decided to send you there."

I guess I must have looked a little dejected.

"Is there something wrong, Lieutenant?"

"It's the men from Iraq, sir. I was wondering about them, sir."

"That is out of my hands, Lieutenant. You'll have to speak to Colonel Hadford about that." I guess I glanced at him. He raised his hand to tell me to hold on. I looked back at the general.

"Your actions in Kuwait have been duly noted, Lieutenant. There were many outcomes to the situation that would have been far more catastrophic than what has happened. Besides, your commander left a lot to be desired..."

"That's why we have decided to promote you, Major."

"Do you really think that's a good idea, sir?" The words were out of my mouth before I realized that I had said them.

"Not really. I didn't say that I had decided to promote you, Major. I said that we had decided... I do have superiors too, you know... back in Washington... Evidently they watch television."

"Sir?"

"You really don't know what's going on, do you?"

"No, sir."

The general looked at me.

"Really, Major, I like my officers to keep themselves informed. Colonel Hadford, would you mind bringing the Major up to speed?"

Colonel Hadford stood up. All eyes turned to him, mine included.

"Major St. Laurent... Larry... you may not watch television, but you've spent a lot of time appearing on it in the past few days. It seems that you and your prisoners have become a cause celebre back home. It's all that anybody's talking about. Even my mother called me to tell me what to do."

"Sir?"

"You've made it to the talk shows too, Major... you and your men..."

"I don't understand, sir."

"It would seem, Major, that although you should be court-martialed, the only court you are to be tried in is the court of public opinion... and the trial has already been held. Your promotion was the verdict."

"What about my men, sir?"

"That, Major, is up to you."

"Sir?"

"Evidently some strings have been pulled in Washington. Well, after the outcry on the talk shows, I guess we all pretty much expected that would happen. At any rate, the end result is that you will be allowed to sponsor the men into the States, if you agree."

"All of them?"

"Yes, Major, all forty of them. It seems that they have become heroes in the minds of the American people. That's what the talk shows are telling us anyway. There's been about a ton of mail addressed to somebody named Twenty-one at a place called Camp Whatchamacallit. There have even been a few job offers."

"When would I be able to see the men, sir?"

"Whenever you wish, Major. Unless, there's anything anybody else has to say..."

The concensus was that everything that had to be said, had been. I was elated. Jerry came over to me and shook my hand. I saluted the generals and prepared to leave.

"Where are the men?" I asked Colonel Hadford.

"They're still at the camp, Major. Security there has been relaxed a little and it's been turned into a hospital for the Iraqi wounded. Your boys are more or less running the place."

"I imagine that made Doc happy," I said. "He'll have Ali running around..." That's when it hit me. "How many did they say I could take back with me?"

"All forty, Larry. You're going to have your hands full finding..."

"But, Colonel, there were forty-one."

I had stopped in my tracks. Colonel Hadford stopped too. He was carrying a clipboard with several papers on it. He found the list of names.

"Oh my God!"

"What is it, Colonel?"

"There was one Kuwaiti in the group. Because he was Kuwaiti he didn't qualify for the amnesty. He was returned to Kuwait two days ago."

"Ali..."

"Ali," Colonel Hadford confirmed.

I felt my knees go weak.

"Do you know where he is?" I asked.

"I'll try to find out. Why don't you get your stuff together and meet me in my office."

"Colonel, I have no stuff. Why don't I just come with you?"

"Didn't you have a gun, Larry?"

"Oh my God!"

"What is it, Larry?"

"I think I left my gun in the restaurant in Kuwait."

The news from Kuwait wasn't good. They were pissed with the Iraqi's because of the destruction of their country during the nearly seven months of occupation. It was just a matter of time before someone spotted a smallish figure in dirty robes and asked him what his problem was. That the person who spotted Ali happened to have been in Kuwait during the occupation and remembered his face was probably in keeping with the run of luck Ali had been experiencing since the war ended.

That Ali was an Iraqi soldier did not immediately enter the mind of the Kuwaiti man who spotted him and told the police about him. He only knew that he had seen him somewhere before and he worried that the dirty young man did not appear to have any place to go.

Kuwait was filling with Kuwaiti's once more, Kuwaiti's whose exile had been cushioned by a surplus of wealth. They did not return to their homes on foot, dirty and dishevelled as Ali appeared. They returned in their limousines, and when they got there, their homes were already being cleaned up by the Palestinians who had been serving them for years.

The police who picked Ali up did not immediately know what they had. He showed them the identification that had been issued to him by Colonel Hadford. They ran a check on this identification and found it to be legitimate.

The knapsack Ali carried added further proof of his affiliation with the allied armies. But when they looked into the outside pocket of the knapsack they found something that Ali had forgotten about. He didn't know it was there because he hadn't put it there. I had. The police pulled out the two pieces of i.d. that Ali had brought with him to the docks... the two pieces of i.d. I had washed for him and pinned to the knapsack to dry... the two pieces of i.d. I had been unable to read except to establish his first name... the two pieces of i.d. I had carelessly stuffed into the outside pocket of my knapsack to keep them safe for him... the two pieces of i.d. that condemned him as an Iraqi.

KUWAIT & SEE

A BROKEN LIGHT FOR EVERY HEART

The Kuwaiti jail was a lot more modern than the brig where Juarez and I had done our time. It had a lot tighter security. I realized right away that my men and I would not be able to repeat Ali's rescue plan. Ali's only way out of jail was a one-way ticket back to Iraq. That's what they told us when we tried to get in to see him.

We didn't get in that afternoon. We returned to Camp Whatchamacallit for the night.

The mood at the camp was subdued. I was quietly greeted by all my men who gathered around with smiles on their faces and a touch of affection for me, but nothing too overt. They knew how I felt and they felt that way too. Part of us was missing. Something had changed. No matter how excited they were that they would be going to the States in just a few more hours, they didn't speak to me of anything but their happiness to see me again and the terrible tragedy that had befallen Ali.

Doc took me on a tour of his hospital and showed me his wards of patients, but that was only to get me away from the crowd, to someplace where he could talk to me.

"You mustn't blame yourself," he told me as we waited for the bunsen burner to reheat the coffee he kept in the laboratory section of the main hospital tent.

"Who else can I blame? Allah?"

"No, that wouldn't be wise, even for agnostics like us, Larry."

This surprised me.

"What do you mean... us?"

"Does it really surprise you that much? How many doctors do you know who are religious? Not the ones who lose a lot of patients anyway, Larry... They tend to be philosophical, but not too religious."

"Then what was all that crap about Allah having a plan for Ali... and me?"

"That wasn't crap, Larry. It took us where we wanted to go... or almost anyway. Besides, who knows what Allah has in store for any of us. I said I was an agnostic, Larry. I didn't say I was against the idea of Allah, I just haven't been sold on it... completely."

"You know, Doc, you're as big a manipulator as Forty. I was starting to believe in God until I found out about Ali. And it was all my fault. Everything I did was wrong."

"Not everything, Boss."

I had not seen Twenty-one standing in the opening of the tent.

"Hey, man, I hear you made a hit in the States!"

"Not as big a hit as I'm going to make... thanks to you... and Ali. Doc was right Larry. You shouldn't blame yourself. I know Ali doesn't blame you. He asked me to say goodbye to you for him. He asked me to tell you that he loves you. He told me to tell you every day. I guess that means I'll have to live with you, huh?"

"There has to be some way out of this," I said. "They have to let him go. They have to understand."

"Tomorrow you will try to make them," the Doc stated. "But regardless of the outcome Larry, you have to realize that you have succeeded forty times. Without you we would all be in Iraq right now."

"And without you, so would I," I sniffed.

"Good point," Twenty-one admitted.

"You're not helping much," Doc complained. "Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Not really," Twenty-one sighed. "I was reading some of my mail, but my eyes got sore. Do you know, some of them sent money too?" He pulled a roll of bills from the pocket of his robe. "The last time I counted it there was a couple of hundred dollars." He handed me the money.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"I want you to give it to Ali for me, if they'll let him have it. I don't think it would be a very good idea for me to go and see him. Tell him that I'm going to study law and find a way to get him to the States as soon as I can... that is if you can't get him out tomorrow."

"Thanks, Twenty-one. You want to be a lawyer?"

"Sure, I suppose so... Why?"

"Oh, no reason, really. It's just that I had hopes that you might find honest work."

Twenty-one smiled. "You mean as a taxi driver?"

"Either that or a male stripper."

"What tent did you say you were staying in, Larry?"

"I think I'll spend the night in the hospital. I don't want to go back in our tent."

"That might be a good idea," Twenty-one answered and winked as he departed. "See ya later, Boss."

Doc poured the coffee.

That night Twenty-one slipped into my bed beside me. He held me for a while and neither of us said a word. The next morning it was as if nothing had happened... nothing had. Two friends had shared a lonely night's vigil together. The fact that one of them came from New York and the other one came from Baghdad was irrelevant.

The next morning I climbed into the jeep beside Colonel Hadford and we travelled back into Kuwait to try again. Well, I tried again. Colonel Hadford went to remind a few people about a few things.

Just after noon a telephone rang in the reception area where I waited. The policeman listened and responded in Arabic. Somehow I knew it was about me. I guess it must have been the way the man kept looking at me. Anyhow, as soon as he put the telephone down he worked the intercom and motioned to me to follow him.

I was led to a small room with a sheet of plexiglass for one wall and a telephone on the table in front of the plexiglass. The other side of the room behind the plexiglass was dark, but I could make out another table with another chair and another telephone. There was also another door. It opened and a hand reached in and turned on the light. The room flickered before me until the fluorescent light finally caught.

And there he was... looking frightened and shrivelled and so much smaller than I had remembered him. The guard told him what to do but he did not look at him. His oil-colored eyes never turned away from me as he felt his way into the chair and picked up the telephone. I picked up the other one.

"I'm sorry," I said. "This is all my fault."

"Larry, don't..." he answered. "Doc was right. It was the will of Allah. I served his purpose. Now I must be punished."

"What for?" I asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."

He looked at me strangely. Then I realized the there was a bit of a smirk on his face.

"You really haven't been paying attention, have you, Larry? The oil... the onion... the hamburger... I thought God had got even with me with the pâté, but I guess not. I guess he must have been keeping score for a while now."

"He got even with Juarez. They busted him down to Private." Ali's face lit up when he heard that.

"What about you, Larry?"

"The idiots promoted me. I'm a major now."

"Way to go, man!"

"It doesn't mean anything. It was either promote me or shoot me. Evidently we all made a splash in the States with that video they shot. They said I could take everybody home with me... everybody, but you, that is. I didn't know until yesterday that they had sent you here."

"Yah, I know."

"Are you all right... I mean, considering?"

"Yah, Larry, I'm okay. The food's pretty good. Of course, I'm not their favorite inmate. When do you guys go?"

"The day after tomorrow..."

"So soon? How'd they work that?"

"They're working the propaganda machine. They want to show us off while the sentiment is still high. I guess we'll be working a few functions for them. That will give me a chance to try to get you out of here."

"I know you'll do it, Larry... But don't be too disappointed if it doesn't work. The Kuwaiti's are very upset with me right now. I'm the wrong kind of wog."

"Colonel Hadford is out bending a few ears for you right now. He hasn't forgotten how you showed him where all the mines were. He told me he'll stay here and try to get you home to me."

A voice came on the line. It said something in Arabic. Ali smiled.

"We only have another minute, Larry. Please don't forget me."

"That would be impossible. I'm going to let the world know about you."

"Just your mom and dad would be good. I know you'll do what you can, though. Will you write to me?"

"Every day. Just be sure you take care of yourself. Colonel Hadford will come to see you to make sure nobody hurts you before we get you out. I love you."

The door opened behind Ali and he stood up. The phones were now dead. But we did better without words anyway. He mouthed his answer to me. Then he was gone... and I never saw him again.

I looked at the clock in the next room. Only five minutes had gone by. I wondered how hard Colonel Hadford had had to work for even that much.

The next two days of my life flashed past. I spent almost every waking moment talking to people who didn't want to hear what I had to say. The only friend I had in the army was Colonel Hadford. He worked harder than anybody for Ali's release. I already had his guarantee that Ali would be included in the amnesty once the Kuwaiti's released him, providing of course that they did not try him and find him guilty of war crimes. That was a distinct possibility too. Ali had confessed that he was planning to blow up the gas and oil pouring into the Persian Gulf. He'd said so on television. There were only about three thousand copies of the tape in existance. The fact that he hadn't done the thing did not mean that he had not contemplated it... and attempted it. The fact that he had showed Colonel Hadford where the mines were did not impress the Kuwaiti's much either. They pointed out that there could be only one explanation for him knowing where they were... he had to have put them there. If anything, they pointed out, that stacked the deck even more against Ali.

I was torn when I saw the plane that would take me away from Saudi Arabia, probably forever. I hated it... the plane, not Saudi Arabia. I had grown to love the country. I had met so many nice people. I was taking forty of them home with me, but leaving the one who had defined my life for me... and has continued to define it for me ever since.

The men were excited of course. For most of them this was their first plane trip. It would be a hell of a trip to start. They would be following the sun and travelling for more than eight hours, but they would be arriving in the New World, as they referred to it, at the same time they left the old one. It meant a lot of translating for Twenty-one, who had taken over as the leader of the group in Ali's absence.

Like all good leaders I got on last hoping against hope that there would be a shout from somewhere half-way across the airport to tell the plane to wait for one more passenger. But the shout never came and Twenty-one, the Doc and the stewardess eventually persuaded me to board. I strapped myself in as the plane began to taxi.

"Sound off," Twenty-one ordered when the announcements were finished. This time the men got to forty and the voices stopped. That's when I realized that Ali really wasn't going to be coming with us. That's when I started to write my third letter to him. It was a long one. I wanted to tell him about how the roll-call had affected everyone who had called a number and how quiet it had been while everyone waited for his, "forty-one." Everybody contributed a message to the letter, some in English, some in Arabic.

We mailed it to Colonel Hadford when we landed at Andrews. For some reason I didn't trust the Kuwaiti mail service.

Our first surprise awaited us in the lounge of the airport. Winston was there with forty-one suits. All but one had a number on it corresponding to the number of the man whose measurements Abdul had faxed to his lover in Washington. The one without a number was a gray thirty-six short wool suit that would have looked beautiful on Ali. I thanked Winston and said that I would put it in Ali's closet until he got home.

The men cleaned up at the hotel and although they were all dog tired, we attended our first function at a church in Virginia. This time others catered the reception and my men tasted the cuisine of another country as the guests of honor rather than surreptitiously in the kitchen. We all felt out of place and we shook a lot of hands. Twenty-one and Abdul were very popular with the young women. They posed for pictures with a lot of them, kissed a few of them, and signed a lot of autographs. I sidled over to Twenty-one after one of these photo sessions and commented that he seemed to be enjoying the young women.

"Not really, Boss," he answered. "I'm just trying to make a good impression. It sure is different, though."

"What? The country, the women, or you?" I asked. He looked at me with a startled expression.

"Everything but me," he answered. Five and Winston walked by almost holding hands. Twenty-one noticed the look in their eyes. "I guess this is where Abdul gets off the bus, huh?"

"It sure looks that way," I agreed. "I'm going to miss him."

"Yah," Twenty-one sighed. "We all are." We watched the couple disappear though the front door. "You'd think he would say goodbye, though."

Almost as Twenty-one finished speaking the door bounced open again and Abdul raced back in. He hurried back to us.

"I'm going now, guys," he said. "Here's our card. I'll be at the home number. Larry, thanks." He hugged me and I saw a tear forming in his eye. "Don't worry about Ali, man. I'm gonna pray for him. We all are. He'll be here before you know it."

I kissed his forehead and we hugged again. This made a few people in the church nervous. I realized that I would have to watch my step. I didn't want to alienate these people who had helped us so generously when we had needed them. We didn't want to open another front in the war just at the time we were negotiating the prisoner exchange. Then Twenty-one hugged Abdul too and he was gone... but not for long.

I looked at the card that Abdul had handed me. It bore both his name and Winston's. There was a pretty exclusive address on it as well. I filed the card in my wallet.

We attended every reception that had been laid on in our honor. As I promised Ali, I spoke to everyone who might be able to influence the Kuwaiti government to release him. There were congressmen and a couple of senators, two ambassadors and an assortment of attaches who heard my pleas. Some listened, others didn't. Sometimes I would feel I was getting somewhere, other times I felt like I was banging my head against the wall.

Finally it was all over and time for me to take my men home, or rather to try to find homes for them. We used the club as our residence... well, there was really no other place big enough.

I guess you've seen the club, but that's not the place I brought my men. It was a whole lot seedier then and about forty years out of date... you know, mostly a place to get drunk in... and the faster the better.

We had a tired band or two that played there, but mostly it was just the piano and from time to time a jazz trio, when they weren't playing the bigger clubs downtown. As for atmosphere, though... nada. I knew that the place needed a facelift, but there were two things that I lacked to be able to make the club into a paying proposition. The first thing I didn't have was the money to do it. The other thing I lacked was an imaginative idea... something that would attract people. I brought both back from the Middle East with me, but I didn't realize it right off the bat.

What I did realize was that my men needed homes. It was while I was busy looking for them that Twenty-one and Doc, who were staying with me at my apartment, began hatching a plan to turn my club, the Kool Kat Klub, into the hottest thing to hit uptown Manhattan since discos.

They realized that they had an abundance of talent in their group, artists, musicians, techno-whiz-kids, culinary craftsmen... you name it... we had it. But probably the most important thing we had was a brotherhood that extended a lot farther than my forty men.

New York City is a truly international metropolis. It didn't take my boys long to get to know the other Arabs in the neighborhood. Some were distant relatives. All of them were connected. If a thing was needed, it could be obtained. Often it could be obtained without money exchanging hands. Lots of things are free in this world. My men seemed to know where the free stuff was and how to get it.

The first thing I noticed was that the food started to taste. I can't say that it tasted better, because the chef I had hired before I left for the Middle East didn't actually serve anything that had flavor. He made everything bland so as not to upset anyone's palatte in particular.

The next thing I discovered was that Twenty-one had been working on my computer. This was his special forte. He had learned English partly in order to make use of the machines he had found in the university. Arabic had its limitations. One of these limitations was the number of good computer programs that were available in it... none.

Twenty-one took to the machine like a duck to water and when he discovered mine it was just a matter of time before he had his own directories filled with much better programs than I could afford. I asked him where he had obtained them, but he was vague.

When I asked what he was doing with them he was a little nervous about showing me, but I pressed him and he called up a CAD program.

"We've been thinking about the club, Larry," he began. "You have a pretty good location, but..."

"But it needs a lot of work," I agreed. "I was hoping to have a little money left over from my service in the Gulf, but I mustered out a little sooner than I thought I would."

"And it hasn't helped having forty mouths to feed," Twenty-one added.

"Thirty-nine," I reminded him.

He looked at me and a few more furrows etched himself into his forehead. I guess he had forgotten that Abdul was now in Washington.

"Still the place needs a face-lift," he pressed. "I think we all agree on that."

"Yah," I said and watched as his long fingers flickered on my keyboard. "The only thing bringing people in right now is you guys. They want to get a look at a bunch of real heroes."

"Then why not use that?" Twenty-one asked.

The computer drew a three dimensional view of the club as it was.

"What do you mean? Put you guys on display? You're already working there a couple of nights a week."

"Yah," Twenty-one agreed, "but only as waiters and cooks." He flicked a few keys and sat back. "Why not make us..." he glanced at the computer screen as it began to redraw the same view of the club, but with a completely different decor... "the main attraction."

My club had been transformed into something out of the Casbah. It was the same building, but now there were big slow-moving ceiling fans and low round tables covered with white cloths. The walls were rough plaster, there were lattice-work screens and indirect lighting filtering through them. Twenty-one grabbed the mouse and led me through the three-dimensional replica, past the bar, up onto the stage and back down through the front door. The screen went blank. Then a new picture redrew itself, this time a representation of the front of the building as seen from the street. The facade wasn't all that bad, but the phony marble front did nothing to attract the eye. I think the original idea had been to not repel anyone.

"We have a few changes in mind for the exterior too, Larry. This is the only thing I'm not too certain about. I know how sentimental you are."

"Me? Sentimental? Like fuck! Go ahead, Twenty-one. Lemme see what you have in mind. There's nothing about the front of the building that can make me sentimental. I've hated it ever since I first laid eyes on it."

"No, man, I didn't mean..."

"It's all right Twenty-one. Show me what you want to do."

He clicked a few keys and we watched.

"Have you ever read '1,001 Arabian Nights'," he asked as the computer looked through its files for the right one.

"Yes, of course," I answered. "Ali Baba and the forty..."

My club had been transformed before my eyes. The windows on either side of the door were now onion-shaped as was the doorway itself. The phony marble was gone and a stucco front added to the Middle Eastern influence. But what caught my eye was the neon sign above the door that had replaced the fluorescent one that had advertised the Kool Kat Klub. Now the name of the club was scrawled in an elegant imitation Arabic that read, "Ali Baba's".

Tears welled in my eyes.

"Shit! I knew it!" Twenty-one cursed. "I knew it was too early to show you."

I grabbed him and kissed him. He held me for a while and we had a good cry together. Then I told him that his plans were beautiful, entirely appropriate and far too expensive.

"That's where you're wrong, Larry. We've just about got everything we need. All we needed from you was the go-ahead, two weeks completely shut down, the okay to invite some media people for the re-opening, and a promise that you won't go off the deep end when we start tearing things out."

"You have everything you need? Where did you get..."

"Oh, yah and a promise that you won't ask where everything came from," Twenty-one added.

I hugged him again and looked at the computer screen. The simplicity of the design appealed to me.

"It's beautiful," I said. "He'd love it."

"Yes he will," Twenty-one agreed. Then he got excited. He grabbed the mouse and moved the image drawing closer to the doors. "This is my favorite part," he grinned. "The doors are voice-activated." He pulled a small microphone from the side of my computer.

"Where'd that come from?" I asked.

"The sound card," he answered.

"But I don't have a sound card..."

"You do now. Oh, and I had to remove some of your dirty picture files... but don't worry... I backed them up on disks. Do you mind if I copy them?"

It was my turn to grin.

"So how does this work?" I asked.

"Well, the customer comes to the door and they say the words once. If they have been there before the computer will recognize their voice. If not, that will mean there's a new customer and a gong will go off. The doorman will appear and make sure they are old enough to come in. Then he will tell them to repeat the passwords and the door will open."

"Go ahead," he urged and his anticipatory smile went from ear to ear. "Try it."

"What do I say?" I asked.

Twenty-one's smile disappeared. "I thought you said that you'd read the book, man."

"Of course," I acknowledged, feeling like a fool. I put the microphone close to my lips and said, "Open sesame!"

The doors flew wide open and a young man in flowing Arab robes bowed to me on the screen. I started crying again.

"Sheesh, I don't believe this guy. It isn't necessarily Ali, Boss. Aw, shit! Now I'm doing it again. It'll be all right, man. You'll see." But Twenty-one was sobbing with me and the little Ali on the screen kept smiling and bowing and smiling and bowing and... well, you get the idea.

That night Twenty-one and I had sex. We each needed the same person beside us, but he was far away, so we made do with each other. After seeing Twenty-one and Forty perform in the motel in Saudi Arabia, I was surprised and gratified by the sensitivity he showed. There was a lot of kissing as we gave ourselves over to the inevitable. The big friendly boy moved about the bed and presented different parts of himself to me as he explored my body.

We had shared sex before, of course, but that had been in Kuwait, in the office of the restaurant, with Abdul and Ali, so this was the first time we had done it together alone. This was strange when you realize that we slept together every night.

At one point I grabbed one of his feet and began to kiss it.

"What are you doing?" he complained. He tried to yank his foot away.

"What is it with you Arabs and your feet?" I asked. "Don't you realize that they're sexy too?"

"But they're feet..." he argued.

"I'm not asking you to do mine, man," I countered.

"I hope not," he bitched as he parted my ass cheeks and shoved his tongue in. It felt really good especially when he surrounded my asshole with his lips and sucked.

"What's wrong with this picture?" I asked. It broke him up. I shoved his foot into my mouth as far as it would go and felt his toes wiggling inside.

"Fuck you!" he called and tried to push it in all the way. I pulled off his foot.

"That comes after the foreplay," I answered. Then I went for that long elegantly curved cock of his until I made him splash down my throat.

I guess things got a little frenzied there for a while. We both had a go at each other's ass. We both unloaded a couple of billion sperm cells up each other's shitters. Then we both collapsed into a sweaty sticky mess on the damp sticky sheets and wondered whether or not we would wake Doc up if we took a shower together. Eventually the conversation drifted back to the proposed renovations and the money that would be needed to do them.

I was not satisfied with Twenty-one's assurances that everything was in place. I wanted to know how they had managed to round up everything in so short a space of time. That's when he told me about the network they had established with other immigrants from the Middle East. I was still not satisfied. I wanted specifics.

"The neon sign," I said. "That has to be custom made. What could you trade for that?"

"That we had to pay for," he admitted. "But the money is just about all together for that. A couple more nights and we should have it."

"Are you guys using your salaries from the club?"

"No... not exactly. Well, not this club..."

"What do you mean? Are you guys working another club?"

"Not all of us... Just some of the younger ones..."

"What kind of clubs?"

"You don't really want to know, Boss."

"All right, Twenty-one, which ones are stripping?"

"You mean besides me?"

"You too?"

"Yah, so? It was your suggestion..."

"I didn't mean for you to take me literally."

"Hey, man, it's fun. And where I come from it's all right for a guy to do erotic dances..."

"But not without his clothes on..."

"Well, yah, that part took a little getting used to. But I like it, man... and they like me... most of them, anyway. I made about a thousand dollars already."

"Yah, but how many weeks did you have to dance to make that?"

"Three nights, Larry."

"Three nights?"

"Yah, well I didn't just dance."

"I know what goes on in those places, Twenty-one. A thousand dollars in three nights?"

"I was the featured performer. A lot of them remembered me from television."

"I'll just bet they did."

"Hey, don't worry, man, I didn't use my real name. I have a stage name."

"What do you mean a stage name?"

"I call myself 'Twelve'. Aw, Larry, what's the matter? Abdul's doing it too. He's the guy who found the place in Washington. He phoned and told me about one here in New York."

"Winston let's Abdul strip?"

"I don't think he knows. Anyway Abdul's working on the voice activated door. That's really a big ticket item, so we had to put our best man on it."

"I don't think I want you guys dropping trou to pay for the club..."

"Larry, you'll just have to accept it. We all want to contribute. Some of us can do it by renovating the club. The rest have to raise the money for the things we can't scrounge. But don't worry. We aren't making it our life's work. We're just trying to give something back. You've given us a place where we can come and work. That will keep us from starving while we find the jobs we're really suited for. If we make the place a success, it's better for us. So a couple of us dangle our peckers in front of some guys... so what? They pay us for it. They're happy... we're happy... everybody's happy. And we get the club on its feet. What's so wrong with that?"

"What's wrong is a little thing called 'AIDS'," I reminded him. "What you are doing is dangerous."

"Doc already took care of that. He showed us all about condoms. We're all right, Larry. You can relax."

"Doc knows what you're doing?"

"Yah... sort of..."

"What do you mean by sort of?"

"He thinks we're dancing for women."

"No he doesn't." It was Doc's voice that interrupted. "Why don't you two shut up? Do you want the whole neighborhood to know what's going on?"

"Well," I said, "I guess it won't make any difference if we take that shower."

In spite of my objections to the way the men were getting the money they needed to fund the renovations, we closed the club down two weeks ago. They gutted it almost overnight. By the end of the second day the wiring had been upgraded. Twenty-seven was an electrician who had already found a job with a construction company. He made sure everything was up to code and called in the inspector he'd met on one of the sites he worked.

After that everything seemed to happen at once. Plaster went over everything inside and outside. As soon as it was dry the trim was applied. The stage was reinforced and re-planked. The bar was overhauled and all new plumbing was installed. A mirror the length of the bar was installed. Several coats of paint were slapped on, inside and outside.

Yesterday they installed the carpet and the sign. Today Twenty-one is trying to debug the doors. They told me it would be ready for tonight, and I guess they were right.

There's only one thing missing, of course. I guess we know what that is, huh? A happy ending...

Well it's time for Colonel Hadford's bus. He flew in from Saudi Arabia last night. He said that nothing could keep him from the opening of Ali Baba's. He must have waited for Winston and Abdul. They're due now too.

Colonel Hadford called me last week and told me that Ali really appreciates all my letters. Unfortunately he is unable to send me any answers... something to do with censorship... He says that we have to keep praying for Ali, and I do. I've started to go to church, too.

Ah, there's the Colonel now. Colonel, over here. Abdul, hey man, don't you guy's have any luggage?

"Hi, Larry. You remember Winston."

"Yes, of course. Colonel, it's good to see you. Did you have any word from Ali?"

"Yes, I did. But I think my batman has it. He'll be right here, though. He's just getting the luggage off the bus."

"What did he say, man?"

"I believe the message was, 'Forty-one.'"

"What did you say, Colonel?"

"Turn around, Larry. He said, 'Forty-one.'"

"Ali??? Ali!!!"

"Please, Larry, not in front of the men..."

Editor's Note: At this point the tape stopped.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Hello, my name is Twenty-one. Larry and Ali aren't up right now, so I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to set the record straight.

First of all, I want to thank all of you who wrote to us and especially the ones who sent money. It was very kind of you and we all appreciate it. Your efforts on our behalf really helped everybody, Ali included.

Some of you have asked what we were doing in Kuwait. The answer to that is really quite simple. Most of us were trying not to be killed. I started out in Southern Iraq, myself. When your guys started firing the artillery at us I decided that Southern Iraq had lost whatever appeal it had previously held. Of course with the air war already pulverizing Baghdad, Northern and Central Iraq were even less tantalizing. So three days after the bombardment began I personally invaded Kuwait... on foot. A lot of the guys had the same idea.

See, you folks weren't taking prisoners at that point. You were too busy shooting at us. Kuwait was not being bombarded. The only real destruction came when our army headed back for Baghdad. That was happening at about the same time I got there, but I swear that I didn't do it. I was looking for somewhere to hide... and a bath.

I found both in Kuwait City. I also found a lot of my friends there. We were waiting for things to cool off a little, and trying to figure out how to surrender without getting our heads blown off, when all of a sudden we hear this story about the restaurant downtown that's being run by a bunch of Iraqi soldiers who are serving meals to the U.S. military.

Well, none of us believed it, of course, but I was getting pretty hungry by then, so I took off my uniform and wandered down there for a look. Naturally I went in the back door and I recognize a few guys. One of them gave me his dinner and went out front to make some more for himself. Well, I scarfed it down and they showed me where I could lay down and get some sleep, cause I was pretty tired by then, but just when I'm starting to drift off these two idiots in the freezer start to laugh about something. Well I'm half asleep by then and I don't really know what I'm doing, so I go in there and ask them to keep the noise down because I want to get some sleep.

It was the guy who gave me his meal who was in there with an American, only he's all dressed in robes like a Kuwaiti. Well, I didn't know whether to whistle or wind my watch by this point, but they grab me and take my clothes off, which is a little disconcerting, especially when they don't do anything but put more back on me. They dressed me up like them and sent me out to wait tables, right in a room full of U.S. servicemen.

Ali, the guy who gave me his dinner, seems to be in charge, so I hang out with him for a while and when I tell him that Juarez, the guy they really sent me out to serve, wants peaches and cream, well, Ali gets a stupid grin on his face and he gets me to go into the freezer with him and masturbate all over the peaches with him. That's when Larry comes in and catches us, only he doesn't say nothing. He guesses what it is we're up to and salutes just as I'm getting ready to unload on those peaches. We threw a little milk on there to sort of hide what we'd done, and then I had to take it out and give it to the goof. The son of a bitch never even tipped me.

But I didn't want to tell you the same story Larry already told. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that I was tired and a little stupid when that happened. I don't remember actually surrendering to Larry, but I could have... I guess. I suppose that it was just sort of understood. Anyway, I'm not really like that... most of the time.

My story really picks up where Larry left off, here in New York. He's right about all of us feeling bad about having to leave Ali, but we knew we had a good man going to bat for him. We'd all met Colonel Hadford, and he knew who we were. I don't think he believed that cock and bull story about Ali being Kuwaiti for a minute. But he got him his papers because Larry asked him to. I suppose that Ali showing him where all the mines were didn't hurt his case either. We fed him well too. He never had to worry about what he ate like that Juarez guy. I still can't believe that Ali fed him that onion and the bastard never knew what he was eating. There was a lot of it on there too.

Of all the people I have met in this world I would have to say that Ali is the one who is most like a brother to me. I know how Larry feels about him. I feel the same. I guess that makes Larry sort of like my brother-in-law, or something. We're all one big family anyway. That's what made it so difficult to try to cheer each other up when Ali was in jail. We all felt just as bad as Larry did.

Of course it also made it hard to keep the secret about Ali's release from Larry. There wasn't a day that went by after Colonel Hadford told us and made me promise to make sure that nobody told Larry that every one of us didn't feel like telling him, but somehow we made it. Of course now Larry says that he knew it all along, but that's bullshit... and we told him so.

See, Ali was released about the same time that we started the renovations on the club. I have to admit that I had a little something to do with it, and even though I'm not proud of what I did... well, it worked.

Let me tell you what happened.

The guys and I realized early on that we were going to need some serious cash to pay for the sign we had planned and the doors that Larry told you about. We had no idea where to get it until Abdul phoned from Washington and told us what he had done the night before.

Winston had been out of town with his congressman for a couple of days leaving Abdul alone and feeling bored. So he went out for a night on the town and found this strip club where the guys strip and other guys watch them. He was hanging around outside when this guy comes out for a smoke and sees him there. It was one of the other dancers. He gets an eyeful of Abdul and likes what he sees and asks him if he's there to audition. Well Abdul has been hanging around trying to work up enough nerve just to go inside, but he tells the guy that he wouldn't mind auditioning, if he thinks there's a chance that they would like him.

Well the other guy looks at him and says, "Oh, baby, there's no doubt in my mind!" So in Abdul goes and the first thing he sees is a black guy with a twelve inch cock waving in front of him there on the stage, which is just a bunch of boards propped up on cement blocks.

Abdul figures he can't compete for size, and they probably won't want him, but he also figures, what the hell! He watches a couple of more guys to see what they do, then he hops up and does a strip that has the audience sitting on the edge of their seats with their jaws hanging open... sorta like Larry does. When he finishes nobody claps for a while, then one guy starts and the rest of the audience wakes up and joins in. See, they were all sort of in a trance there because Abdul is such a beautiful guy.

They hired Abdul on the spot and he worked there the rest of the night. All the time he's there he's talking to the other dancers. A lot of them have been around a while and they know the circuit. They tell Abdul about the other clubs on the east coast, a lot of which are in New York, but they don't mention how the real money is made. Abdul doesn't know any better so he stays in the dressing room all night and when the shows are all finished he goes to get his money from the manager, who tells him to be there the next day too.

When he leaves there are about six guys still waiting to see him and talk to him. The first guy asks if he can take him home. Abdul figures that would be a nice thing for him to do and it's kind of late, so he says, "Sure."

Then the guy asks him, "How much?"

Abdul asks him, "How much for what?"

"To spend the night with you," the guy says.

Abdul says that he doesn't own his home and he shouldn't invite people to stay with him without getting permission first.

The guy tells him that that is all right since he has a hotel room right around the corner and he'd be willing to pay Abdul two hundred dollars to come with him and let the guy use him as a lollipop all night.

Well this sounds like major bread to Abdul and he agrees to spend the night with the guy and gets the most serious sucking he's had since Kuwait. The next day he calls me and tells me that he thinks he has the down payment for the doors. Then he tells me where to go in New York to find the Follies.

Now, I'm no Abdul and I know it, so I get a bunch of the better looking guys together and we walk down to the place to have a talk with the manager. It turns out that she's a woman. Well, that was kind of stupid. I guess that she would have to be wouldn't she? But it's a totally different idea than dealing with a man. You've got to understand we're Arabs, and not totally sold on this equality thing.

But we swallow our pride and drop our drawers and she watches each of us and chooses me. I'm sort of wondering what I've got myself into when she tells me she will start me off on Friday night and Saturday night when she usually has fifteen of us stripping.

The other guys head up town to audition at a couple of other clubs and I go back to Larry's club to see if anybody can teach me how to dance. See, I'm a little unco-ordinated.

Well, everybody wants to show me different stuff and I'm getting sort of confused by it all and trying to remember what they say, when Ahmad asks me how I got the job if I couldn't dance. I told him I had just moved to the music and he said, "Show me."

They put on some music and I got up on the stage and showed them what I'd done... well I didn't take all my clothes off like I did at the Follies, but I took off enough so they got the idea, and Ahmad, that's Four to you, says it looks good to him and I should just keep doing what I'm doing. Well that made sense to everybody.

Anyhow the next item on the agenda was finding me a costume. Ahmad just looked at me and said, "Why not wear the robes Ali gave you?" Again, everybody figured he was right, so I gave them a wash and hung them out to dry.

That Friday night the place was packed. I don't mean that everybody was there to see me, you understand, I'm just telling you that it was a busy place on Friday nights. I was just one of the fifteen dancers when I went in there, but I noticed that when I came off stage after my first dance and started walking around in my robes, that a lot of people were looking at me like they were trying to place my face. One guy in particular though was just looking at me. Every time I turned around I would see him staring at me, until I looked, of course, and then he would look somewhere else. He was an Arab too. I thought he might have been offended by me having danced bare ass, me being an Arab too and all, but he didn't come close enough to me for me to start a conversation with him. He just hung around me. Once I was talking to this guy who wanted to have sex with me, and I felt like I was being watched again. I looked over my shoulder really quickly, and I saw him turn and walk away. But he had been eaves-dropping on my conversation. I was sure of that.

I had been telling the guy I was with that I was one of the fellows he'd seen on television during the war. He asked me what my real name was. I had been dancing as Twelve because when the manager asked me what my name was for the introduction I had not been prepared. I didn't want to give my real name, Twenty-one, and the name I was born with really sucks, so I thought really quickly and told her Twelve, because Twelve is just Twenty-one backwards. But the guy I was with seemed okay, so I told him my name was Twenty-one.

Anyway the guy says, "So you really are an Iraqi... and a hero at that!"

"Well," I said, "I don't know about the hero part, but I guess I have to admit to being Iraqi." That's when I looked over my shoulder. I didn't see the Arab guy again after that... that night. The guy I was talking to did eventually get around to telling me what he had in mind and we did it in the women's washroom. He paid me thirty-five dollars and asked me for my phone number. I gave it to him, but I took his too and told him I would call him Sunday afternoon.

I got a lot of phone numbers that night. The word spread through the place that I was one of the Iraqi's who had busted Larry out of jail in Baghdad, and my dance card was full for the rest of the night. The same thing happened the next night.

I was turning so many tricks that the manager decides to keep me on for the next day too, to see if I can pack them in one more time. She even put a special sign up out front advertising that she had me, "Live from Iraq, Twelve... it isn't just his name..."

Now, I'm no slouch in the pecker department, but twelve? Well I guess if you're using the metric system... and I'm really excited... But then I could use my real name.

Anyhow, there were plenty of guys there on Sunday too, to suck a celebrity, and I hit a thousand dollars for the three days by about four o'clock in the afternoon. That's when I saw another Arab guy watching me. Only this time, this guy comes over and interrupts a conversation I'm having with another guy and tells me to come with him.

I told him I was busy and he'd have to wait, but then he tells me that he does not intend to wait and I feel the barrel of the gun in my back. He doesn't keep it there but he just pokes me with it to let me know that he's got it.

I figure that I'd better do as he says, so I excuse myself and go where he points me, which is out through the turnstile and down the stairs to the street.

On my way out I almost knocked over the guy I'd been talking to on Friday night... you know the guy I'd told who I really was? When I didn't call him that afternoon like I said I would, he called my number... well, Larry's number actually... and Doc told him that I had gone to work again, so he came on over to see me. Anyway, I'm still in my robes, which is unusual and this guy knows it... but I'm being pushed along against my will and he sees this. When they push me into a limousine, the guy takes down the licence number and realizes that the car has diplomatic plates. He realizes this because he works at the United Nations, and he makes a telephone call and finds out that the car is registered to the Kuwaiti delegation.

Well, he figures that two plus two still equal four, so he looks through the phone book and finds the number of a friend of his from work and calls him up to find out everything he can about the Kuwaitis who are in town.

Meanwhile, I'm being blindfolded in the back of the limousine. This leads me to believe that they are serious about kidnapping me... well, I've always been pretty smart. But at that point I'm feeling pretty stupid, and I'm wishing I was back in Iraq. This wish gets fonder as the afternoon turns into evening. I'm led from the car to an elevator and it goes up a couple of floors. While it's doing that a couple of guys are stripping me naked. When the doors open they push me through onto a marble floor and drag me along a ways until I hear a door close behind me.

The next thing I feel is a kick in the nuts that I am absolutely not ready for and I double over like Larry's jacknife. This makes it easier for them to tie me up, which they do. They put me into a sling and then they leave me there. I hear the door close anyway. But I don't think that I'm alone. Ten minutes goes by and there isn't a sound in the room, but I know that there's somebody there with me. I don't say anything though. My nuts are still stinging and I'm feeling sick to my stomach with the pain and I don't want to go through it again, so I'm being a good boy.

Then I hear somebody snap their fingers off to my left, but it doesn't really surprise me like I think he thought it would. I do turn my head in his direction though. He isn't wearing shoes. I know this because the floor is still marble in this room and a couple of seconds after he snapped his fingers to the left of me, he did it again, only on the other side. He's playing with my pumpkin, like Larry always says.

Well, I don't bother looking, because I'm blindfolded, afterall and there's no way I could see anything anyway. I guess he figures that I'm getting a little sick of his stupid game, so he steps between my legs and grabs a healthy handful of my nuts and gives them a twist. This re-engages my interest immediately.

He's hanging on with my nuts twisted around, I figure about three and a half times, and I defy any of you guys not to scream when that happens. But then he sticks my cock in his mouth and bites it.

Well, my back arches up about a foot and a half when he does that. I'm thinking he's going to bite the fucker off. I'm screaming and pleading with him to stop, and I'm doing it in Arabic.

Well, he stopped. I'm wishing I could see so I could have a look at it and all of a sudden I can. He ripped the blindfold off me and it turns out he's the Arab guy from Friday night.

"You're Kuwaiti, aren't you?" I said. See, I'd been doing some mental arithmetic myself.

"Good," he answered, "at least you know who is killing you, Iraqi."

"Look, man," I said, "I didn't want to invade Kuwait. That was another guy's idea. I wasn't even in Kuwait until the war ended. I only went there to get out of the line of fire... and take a bath..."

"Shut up, Iraqi. You killed my brother!"

"I never killed nobody!" Sorry about the double negative, but that's as close as I can come with the translation.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back until I thought my neck would snap.

"You are guilty!" he screamed. "Allah knows you are guilty!"

"Allah knows right where I was all the time," I argued. "I never killed nobody!"

He fetched me a knee in the back. Then he went back between my legs. He took a loop of fine wire and pulled my nuts through it. I knew what he was planning and I didn't want any part of it. The loop had two free ends wrapped around a pair of wooden handles. He pulled the handles away from each other and I felt the wire tighten around my scrotum just beneath the base of my cock. Between his feet on the marble floor sat a bucket. I knew why it was there. The bastard was going to castrate me and let me bleed to death... and he didn't want to stain the floor with my nuts or my blood.

"Oh, jeesh," I whined. "Please, man, don't do that!"

That's when the door opened and a voice bellowed, "Yasin!"

The man who bellowed looked a lot like the man between my legs, only older. He glared at the scene and tried to figure out what was going on. It did not take him long. The evidence was pretty much laid out before him.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Yasin still held the two handles that could sever my testicles in a millisecond. I hoped that the man in the doorway would realize this, but I dared not say anything for fear of angering Yasin, who was now apparently under the influence of the older man. The older man walked into the room and approached Yasin.

"Give me those things," he said across my lower body. I wished that he had been a little more specific, but Yasin seemed to understand. He let the pressure off a little, but then he seemed to rebel and I felt the wire tighten once more.

"But he's an Iraqi, father," he cried. "He killed your son. And they made him out to be a hero."

"Yasin..."

"No, Father, he must die!"

"And if he does, I will lose another son," Yasin's father said and his voice was soft and full of love. "Give that to me, Yasin. I do not want to lose you, too."

Well, Yasin started to cry and he dropped the two handles. I felt the thing loosen and fall off. It clattered into the bucket. I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief and when I opened them again Yasin was no longer in the room. His father was there though. He looked at me and I could tell that he didn't like what he was looking at. I guess a couple of minutes passed like that, then the door opened again and two men came in. I recognized the man from the Follies who had kidnapped me. Now he was untying one side of me while the other guy did the other side. Yasin's father never touched me.

They threw me my robes and I pulled them on. Only then did Yasin's father speak to me.

"You have me at a disadvantage," he said. "I have diplomatic immunity, but my son..."

"You're a diplomat?" I asked.

"I am," he stated. "This situation could be very embarrassing. I ask you to accept my apologies. I am also willing to reimburse you financially..."

"I don't want money," I said, " I want justice."

"You have that right," he acknowledged. "Kidnapping is a serious offense..."

"I don't care about that," I said. "Do you have much influence in Kuwait?"

"How do you mean?"

I went for the bundle. "I've got this friend, see..."

Colonel Hadford told me that Ali was released into his custody the very next day.

Well, that's about all I had to add to Larry's story. I guess you all saw the news piece they did about the club opening. It was a real bash. I shook hands with the Mayor and a couple of other people who told me they were important. The guy who saved my life was there too. The place was really packed and has been every night since. I think we've got Larry off to a good start. Well, it only seems right. They say turnabout is fair play.

Ali took my place in Larry's bed, of course, but don't feel sorry for me or nothing. I've been bunking in with another guy I met in Kuwait. He's taking me home to Boston in a couple of days to meet his mother. He's also going to get me into M.I.T. Maybe you remember him... his name is Roger Hadford.

Author's Note:

I hope that you enjoyed the story of Larry and Ali and all of their friends. If you did, I would like to hear from you. I have plans to write Ali of New York and Twenty-one of Boston, but I need to know if anybody is reading these little projects of mine.

You can e-mail me at cmurray@adan.kingston.net with your comments and suggestions. I would also like to hear from anyone who does not approve of the stories, for whatever reason... except of course racism. We've all had bad experiences with people from different ethnic groups. But it is a mistake to hate all members of a group because of the actions of a few. Let's learn to live together. It's the only chance we have.