EDWARD

Edward Chang was born on 20 May 1980 in Taipei and raised in Southern California. He studied at the University of California, San Diego, where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and economics. Edward served in a U.S. Army aviation regiment in Operation Iraqi Freedom. After his deployment, he received a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and a law degree from Loyola Law School. He lives in Los Angeles, where he practices law and spends his free time wrestling his dog, Ludwig. His first novel, Chinks & Mortars, is available as an ebook, on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. He previously blogged about his time in Iraq (see here) and shares another experience below.

“Cigalette?” Muhammed offered, withdrawing a pack from under his wind beaten shirt.

“No, no thank you…”

Feeling silly for thinking him a terrorist, I reciprocated Muhammed’s friendliness in the best way I knew how – excessive conversation. As we whizzed back up the road in my Hummer, I began blabbing like an eager kid. For his part, Muhammed only had to nod and smile to keep me going, which he did in generous helpings.

I spoke to Muhammed about the warm morning and how I thought I was finally getting used to the desert heat. I told him I was from Los Angeles, and that I had been to Disneyland, and then I asked him if he knew what Disneyland was. Sometimes when you get away with talking too much, you say really silly things.

He smiled and popped a cigarette in his mouth. Finding no lighter on his body, he simply sat back in the passenger seat and pretended to smoke.

“I was thinking just now how it must be like to be one of you. I know that sounds really wrong, but I can’t help but think that. I was pretending I woke up at the butt crack of dawn to come over to this base to build our fence and make an honest day’s buck. Only, I don’t know what happens next. What happens at the end of the day when I go home? Do my friends make fun of me for working with the Americans? I wonder if you go back to some place awful and bombed out, or if all this really doesn’t affect your real life so much.”

“It’s nice…” Muhammed responded, pointing at the farmland up ahead, beyond our perimeter.

“So Muhammed, you have a girlfriend back home?”

“Girl?”

“Yeah. A girlfriend?”

“Ah. Yes, meestah.”

“What does she think about you working for us?”

Muhammed didn’t understand my question, let alone, I suspect, all the conversation that came before.

We continued down the road in my car. For a while, I pretended we were best buds on a road trip to Las Vegas.

“Where are your tools?” I finally asked Muhammed.

He pointed to a pile of shovels, pick axes, and hoes 100 meters up the road, which was maybe another 100 meters from where we started our trip.

I stopped the Hummer next to a group of American soldiers eating their meals on the side of the road, all migrant-worker and Steinbeck like.

Muhammed got out and began to collect the tools and heave them into the bed of the Hummer. I wanted to assist him, but I instead stayed in the Hummer with my M-16 pointed at him, my finger on the trigger more for show for the Americans than to keep Muhammed in his place. He would not look at me as he did his work. His easy going smile had left him.

Muhammed seemed relieved when I dropped him back at the work site. He quickly unloaded the car and met up with his friends, and when he was finally among his friends, his uneasiness finally faded into the good humored charm that I had witnessed earlier when he blew on his unlit cigarette in my passenger’s seat.

My group of Iraqis started working. They pounded spikes and poles into the ground, dug out remnants of old fences, and tied new links together with the diligence of a well-trained pit crew.

I sat under a eucalyptus tree on an embankment flushed against the side of the sandy road. The sunlight was still morning enough to be soft and dream-like. I drank from my canteen and wished I could read a book or draw.

The workers took their first water break when the sun was directly over our heads. They walked over to the side of the road and patiently waited in line for the youngest worker to serve them water out of green Army plastic containers. After each of them received their portions, they lined up and squatted at the base of the fence and drank heartily. They laughed and joked with each other in a language that was foreign to me, but seemed also familiar in the way they enunciated certain words, shot out some sentences faster than others, and lingered over the ends of some sentences. Then they punched each other in the arm and I would find myself interpreting their words.

“So I took this soldier for a ride in my jeep today, Abdul.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, that Asian soldier over there. We drove all over this base. Saw Khalid down by the airstrip churning cement. I said hello to him.”

“Why did you go with the soldier?”

“To get tools. I thought he knew where they were, and I didn’t want to cause trouble and interrupt him as he was driving. He looked pretty trigger happy.”

“Was he nice?”

“I guess. He didn’t take the cigarette I offered him, and he wouldn’t let go of his weapon, but at least he didn’t look at me with disgust like the others do.”

They finished their water with quick last swigs and gathered around together in a huddle. Some of them would look over to me. I smiled back at them as I picked at blades of dried grass on the ground.

Then Muhammed came over to me and said, “Excuse me, Meestah. Ah you Japanese?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He looked back at his friends, who were all watching. They shooed him on, so he turned back to me.

“Ah, you…Japanese?”

“No. American.”

“Japanese?”

“American.”

“Japanese?”

I hesitated. “No, I’m Taiwanese.”

“Japanese!” he said, as if we both agreed on this.

“Yes, yes, I am Japanese,” I conceded.

“Ah, you…Jackie Chan?”

“No, I’m not Jackie Chan.”

His eyes lit up with recognition. “Jackie Chan!”

All of a sudden, Muhammed jumped into a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fighting position. I jumped back, but I didn’t unsling my weapon.

“Jackie Chan! Hooah!” Muhammed yelled.

I laughed, a little less nervously than I anticipated.

“Yes, Jackie Chan!” I put up my fists, opened up my legs into a fighter’s stance.

As soon as they saw this, the workers, save for the white haired old man I had mistaken for Muhammed’s father, surrounded me and duplicated my fighting position.

“Meestah! Teach us!” The youngest one said.

“Wooah!” I said, letting out my barbaric hyena yawp.

“Wooah!” They emulated.

“Say: SWEEP THE LEG!”

“Sweebdalayg!”

All of us kicked. Sand flew up everywhere.

“PUT HIM IN A BODY BAG!” I bellowed.

And that was when the soldiers supervising the other workers on Force Protection came crashing out of the bushes to see what the ruckus was all about. Their weapons were pointed at the Iraqis. One of the soldiers pointed his weapon at a tree. I don’t want to imagine what they were thinking when they saw us.

I put up my hands and backed off, saying to the Iraqis in my military voice: “no, no, back to work guys…”

Then I turned to one of the supervising Officers, whose face was one of consternation.

“Silly Iraqis…” I said, my voice low and important.

I took an uncomfortable swig from my canteen, turned around and sat back down under the eucalyptus tree.