I've never written anything like this. I had the idea some time ago, and put down a sketchy outline, then left it for a few years. I got to thinking about it a week or so ago and suddenly powered through it in the last day or two. I don't really know what category to put it in, my first though was 'non-erotic' but there are vague descriptions of several sex acts, so that's out. Sci-fi might be one idea, but not a good one. It seems too short to put in 'Novels', but perhaps 'Humor and Satire' might fit. Except that not all of it is funny. Behind the whole idea is something that marked the narrator, both mentally and physically, and he doesn't want to talk about.
I self edited so there are mistakes, if you can't stand that, don't read it. And as for tags, I could do better and should have, but I just had fun with them instead.
This story contains wildly improbably tales of fictional events that mix equipment, people, places and wars from different eras. Insensitive nicknames for people from another nation, insensitivity, a maladjusted sense of humor, denigration of the fraternity and sorority system, cruelty to animals, the use of fictional names from comics, TV, and possibly other sources, and many other offensive subjects. You probably shouldn't read this. If you do, you'll probably want to 'one-bomb' the story, and that might be the best thing you should do. I only check comments and my email for feedback every five or six months, so don't expect a response. My advice is to not read this.
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I guess the stories started in college. I was older than most the other people in my class, having spent eight years in the Army before deciding to get out while I was still alive and unmaimed. I don't regret my time in the Army, and for a while I thought about a career in it, hence the re-up after the first four years.
As for the stories, they started one day at the U of I, a year or so after my ETS (End of Time in the Service -- or something like that.) I was in the snack bar at the main library. The Student Union had pretty much been replaced by the study and snack areas, and small lounges and meeting rooms in the main library. It was also closer to the sprawling campus and had better parking.
There were five of us sitting around in a huddle room, all in the same class. Later on as I progressed through my undergraduate years and then in grad school the mix of those I socialized with changed. Although some of the same faces stayed around, or went missing then reappeared later.
The first time anyone asked about my scar was early on. It was a guy, apparently he'd been a football jock for a couple of years, second string, but still an athlete. He'd been in the informal study group for the class. But we were relaxing then, and some were talking about what to do for entertainment over the coming weekend.
Then the Jock guy asked the question.
"How'd you get that scar on your face?"
The others looked horrified, or surprised, or embarrassed. The two sorority blonds with Jock guy looked back and forth between him and me. There was another girl, light brown hair and startlingly blue eyes, medium tits and loose fitting and comfortable clothes. She went red in the face, I could see she was working herself up to tell off Jock guy for saying it. She really had magic in those blue eyes. I knew then that I would never forget them.
I liked that girl, just hadn't said anything or made any move or anything, at least at that point, but that's another story.
I thought about getting that scar. But they were too young, too naive, too innocent to tell about it. So I made a story up. A whopper of a tale. I grinned to myself before I let the words out. This would teach them to ask me again.
"It happened in Afghanistan. Oh nothing heroic, just a stupid accident. I was riding this billy goat in an impromptu jousting session, the other guy was on on a donkey, so you know it was unfair, but that's the luck of the draw, am I right? I wasn't the best rider, but not the worst. But I knew this wouldn't take me long, after all I was new at it. I expected to get knocked ass over teakettle on the first pass. But I knocked that fucking hairy wolf man, Vince Marcus, off his donkey.
"So I won that heat, and figured if I had to go again I'd get the mangy burro, but no, I got the goat again, and this time I was up against the guy who knocked Sergeant Fury off his goat. Shitfire. So I had to go again, but when I went to saddle up, fucking Dum-Dum grabbed the donkey first, so I had to take the goat again. Fucking animal eyed me like he wanted me to eat shit and die. The goat didn't like me much either.
"The fucking thing is that when I knocked Corporal Dugan off his steed, that fucking imbedded journalist, Eric Koenig demanded that he wanted to go against me. I waxed his ass, but it was fucking hot and my steed was not only tired, but pissed off. So when I tried to dismount that gods cursed goat, he reared up and arched its back just as I leaned forward, and one of his thrice cursed horns caught me.
"At least I didn't have to go again, I would have had to go up against a warrant officer from the Motor Pool, Andy Micklin, he was a mean SOB in normal life, and watching him take out everyone he went up against didn't give me any hope. He was knocking them down with a vengeance."
"What happened then, you were cut, and probably pretty deep."
"Yeah, they took me to aid tent were they'd been taking all of Micklin's victims. Cute nurse took care of me, an L.T. - Lieutenant, Carrie Holden. Nice lady."
Jock guy just stared, stupefied. I think he believed it. Everyone else had their eyes wide open for a second, then just grinned. The brown haired girl with the magic blue eyes that I liked, looked sort of sick. I guess she believed it too. I was going to have to talk to her some time soon, but maybe not right now. Then she got it. She gave me one of those looks, like, 'oh you smart-ass'. And then smiled.
She more than smiled, she grinned. It made her face light up.
Finally one of the sorority blonds started giggling. Jock guy looked sort of confused and swung his head back and forth as everyone else let out air or just giggled or chuckled. He finally gave a half hearted chuckle. I hoped someone would explain it to him.
Me, it was time for me to head to my part time job, so I gathered up my things, stuffed them into my back pack and left. I turned before I got out of the area, they were all looking at me, I gave them a casual salute and left.
......
The Next Time.
Life went on, classes, part time jobs, studying and what-not.
I was in the bookstore, looking for those stupid blue books. Had to have one for a test. I got what I needed, and was browsing in the odds-n-ends type section, pens, ball point refills, highlighters, paper clips and other things I couldn't really fit into my budget, when Jock guy bumped into me. Yes, actually bumped into me. On purpose. Yeah, he meant it to be friendly.
"Hey, how 'r you doing?" he asked.
Damn he was loud, every head in the bookstore turned to look at him. I saw one of his, no two, of his blond sorority girl types a few aisles over.
We chatted about nothing for a while. There was some one else there in the aisle sort of looking things over at the same time I was, when Jock guy talked about my scar again.
"Hey, sorry if I put you on the spot about the scar back then. But I gotta say, that was a funny story," he said.
The guy next to us looked over.
"What story?" he said.
"Oh, you gotta hear this, it's funny," said Jock guy.
"What's it about?" said the guy.
"His scar! Look at that thing."
"Hey, what happened? You get caught in a hay baler?"
By then there were more people around. Jock guy definitely didn't have an inside voice.
"Come on, tell us again," said one of the sorority blonds who had drifted over.
I sighed. Dammit, that story was supposed to be a hint not to ask me again. I didn't want to be that asshole that acted all upset and moody, but sheesh, they were supposed to pick up on my reluctance. There's some things that these happy-go-lucky kids didn't need to know.
So I made up another one, just pulled it out of my ass.
"Ok, there were were, after my second deployment to the sandbox, We were in our Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, tooling up Highway One, Running North. The Central Highlands off to our West. Not a worry in the world. They said Charlie was done for and some jeeps had done a sweep up the highway just a few hours before.
"The driver said he wanted to listen to some music. Well, he was a big fan of 'Kelly's Heroes', and especially of Oddjob. No that was a different movie, it was Oddball he had a thing for. So he slides a Wagner disc into the CD player those Bradleys come with. Before you know it we're listening to 'Ride of the Valkyries', I think he put it on the outside speakers too.
"We're about half way through the tape, uh, disc, and wouldn't you know we find out we should've been going South. Thats when they dropped 'The Bomb' out there to the West. Over the central highlands."
"An A-bomb?" asks some bystander.
"A Nook-U-Lur bomb. Dropped from a B-2 stealth bomber, trying to wipe out some tunnel complex. Yeah, I know, they never admitted to it. But we were there. We were too far out to have been in the fireball, but the Bradley got caught up in the blast, it rolled us over and over. Good thing they told us all to wear our flak vests and helmets and to strap in.
"We're rolling around in that tin can kind of like old Indy did in his lead lined coolerator. Well, eventually we stop rolling and miracle of miracles we're upright and on our tracks. The engine had cut out and so had the lights inside. Then the driver turns his key in the steering column, and that Dodge Four-Twenty-Six Hemi, with twin four barrels fires right up. Yah. Now THAT was sweet music.
"Lights come on, the hydraulics work, the TC (Track Commander -- up in the turret with the gunner,) swiveled the turret around and had a look-see through his periscope. Nothing going on anywhere, but he said he saw a '54 Chevy racing down the highway way out in the distance.
"Then the CD player went crazy. Weird noises come out, not music, things sputter, then it shoots that disc out at like a million miles an hour. It bounces off LeBeau's steel pot. Damn, leaves a dent in the thing. Bounces off the turret ring, then shoots past Kinchloe, so close that it shaves off half of his mustache, cuts the brim off of Carter's hat and slices open my face."
"Then what happened to the CD?" asked nerd guy.
