Back in the garage, Ox’s voice rings up into the black sandblasted rafters: “You’re a piece of military-grade shit. You’re done. Never work in this fuckin’ town again. Hear me?”

Hunter hears him loud and clear, wants to go back to Ox’s area and shut him down.

He had served two years in hell, a.k.a. Iraq, after acquiring a special skill on the GI Bill. That tour was money meant to pay for learning a trade, to reimburse him for the time he gave to Uncle Sam. Forty grand. Uncle Sam never paid. Hunter became a helicopter mechanic, gave his time to the Army Reserve—two weekends a month for two years. He landed a job at the Indianapolis airport, working on planes, only to be called up when the USA invaded Iraq. Four weeks of brush-up basic training in Jersey, then off to Iraq. Being flown out to repair Apaches, Bells, Pumas—you name it, he fixed it. Flying over the burial sites of locals who had died over the years, he saw mounds and mounds of graves, of unknown histories. They soon became a symbol of an unwinnable war, of Saddam’s atrocities on the innocent. Other times, he would serve as a team leader, riding as fast as the Humvee could carry him and his team. Every bump and jar of the vehicle’s frame made his butt clench tighter, rattled his nerves. Never knowing when they might hit an IED and go boom! kept him on high alert, nerves constantly frazzled, wondering whether he and his men would become like those mounds—casualties of an unending war.

Arriving in a town, he and his team of soldiers swept the clay-dirt-sand homes in search of insurgents and intel. With their lost expressions of hope, kids approached them, filthy faced, begging for help. They had torn clothing and busted bare feet. He never gave them candy—why rot their teeth out even faster than normal? So he offered them a tool for learning, always giving them pens and small pads of paper. He showed them how to write the nicknames the soldiers gave them. They loved it, pushing a stick of plastic over paper or skin and watching lines and shapes appear. He always carried several fresh packages of Paper Mate and Mead ballpoints. Those were Hunter’s gift.