I, Sniper

Next came the towel. It was wrapped heavily around Swagger’s face, flattening his nose, clogging his breathing passages, taking his vision from him. Why imprison the body when one could imprison the head? It was the same thing. Claustrophobia, most men’s scourge, was set free by these powerful folds encasing the face, making the air itself a labor to obtain, sowing seeds of fear meant to blossom in the coming minutes.

“Then there’s the regretful torturer,” said Anto. “Him I despise the most. He’s too good for his line of work, and what got him here in the dungeon with the animals unleashing debasement and humiliation and filth upon another human being, that is such a complex story, and he’d love nothing better than to tell it to you in all its ironies and comic macabres, straight out of our minor Irish writers, but alas he hasn’t the time, because he’s got to crank the telephone wires full of juice to fry your man parts. ‘So sorry. Don’t think ill of me. I’m as much victim as you are. I feel your pain. My heart is with you. We should bond and somehow, if you’d but break, you can spare us both the torment of the next hours. It’s in your power. Don’t make me do it. I don’t want to do it and it’s only your intransigence that forces it upon me. Is it not manifest that, morally and intellectually, I am so far in advance of such behavior?’ Do you not see the play of narcissism in the fellow’s maunderings? Your torture isn’t about you, it’s about him. He’s the secret hero and victim of the transaction. The first bucket, fellows. Bobby Lee, try not to fight it, me friend. If you fight it, it goes far worse, and it ruins your heroism. Accept it, go with it a bit, and then you’ll have done your duty. You’ll probably beat the lieutenant colonel and that’s enough, but no man can stand more than two buckets. You’ll go three, that’s an hour. You’re the hero type, I’m knowing. He’s a right bucko, eh, Ginger?”

“I don’t know, Anto. Possibly he’s a shitter. Many are, you know.”

“Indeed, many are. The lieutenant colonel, I remember, he was a shitter, finally, at the end.”

“He was.”

“Still, I doubt Sniper Bob will be a shitter, Ginger. His head is on too tight and it’s far too full of chary notions like honor and dignity. He’ll keep his bottom plugged hard, you’ll see.”

Swagger felt the water, first as weight, then as damp, then as wet, then as drench, finally as death. It came as infiltrators arrive, from all points, without a lot of commotion or hubbub, glimpsed from far away and then somehow suddenly gigantic and everywhere, the world was water.

The water rose through the towel and clamped itself upon his face. He tried to hold his face tight to fight it, keep it from tu

He felt his body jack and spasm as the Irishmen leaned into it and all his strength went against all theirs and since there were more of them, they prevailed, leaving him alone, finally, with the water.

Water, water, everywhere. Fu

The air rushed in. He breathed it hard as the towel was torn off, sucking it in, pure elixir of ambrosia, cold and life-sustaining, his lungs inflating greedily.

“Did I not tell you, boys, did I not? A strong fellow, sure, so he is. Almost a minute in the universe of the drowning and not a word for it.”

“And no shit at all,” said Jimmy. “His buttocks got a cork a’tween ’em.”

“He is tough,” said Ginger. “Give the poor beggar that. Impressive start. A right bucko, as you said, Anto. Maybe ’twill be a long night’s work.”

“On the other hand,” said Jimmy, “maybe that was it for the fella. Now he’s spent. He gave it a good go, but he isn’t holding it today, not now that he knows what it’s like and how far beyond deciding it is.”

Anto took the opportunity to continue the lecture.

“Finally,” he said, “there’s my kind of torturer. I am what is called the duty torturer. I ask no understanding, and if caught out by the Clara Bartons of the news, then I go to me fate with dignity, sure in the conviction that what I done was in the right, no matter how them lady-fellows spun it round and made it seem evil. Because of Anto Grogan and his three leprechauns, there’s a hundred-odd British squaddies back in Blighty, drinking Mr. Gui

Who could outspeak a poet? Not Swagger.

“Fuck you, Mr. Potatohead.”

Anto sighed, as if disappointed in the lame zinger that Swagger had improvised, and more disappointed that his hero was no Oscar Wilde, answering in honed epigrams.

“A comment bespeaking futility. No better than the sod carrier’s curse. Are yis not finished yet?” he wondered and stared into Swagger’s twisted, drenched face, and answered his own question. “You are not. Still, I think you’ll be before I have my breakfast eaten. Second bucket, buckos.”