Handling
It was the day of the execution. I had never killed a man before. I fired a gun but never at a human being. I remember the first time—an M14 7.62mm rifle. The weapon rested easily in my hands, much lighter than I had expected. I held my breath and pulled the trigger. The weapon coughed violently and sprung forward, ricocheting a foot off my shoulder. I wasn’t holding the rifle tightly enough and was left with a softball-sized bruise, becoming known to my platoon as Loose Goose, later just Goose.
Dirt that was pressed into the lines of my fingers cracked as I bent the joints back and forth. I hadn’t showered or let alone washed my hands in four days, ever since I learned that I would be part of a twenty four-man firing squad, commissioned to execute a soldier accused of raping a fourteen-year-old girl from Pusan. We were never given the name because all we had to know was that this man was a traitor and deserved twelve bullets to the heart. I considered myself fortunate for landing a position at office management, spending my days filing papers and opening and closing cabinets, safe in Orem, an ocean away from the Korean war zone. I hadn’t touched a firearm in over a year.
I stood in the bathroom, staring at my sordid flesh in the mirror, covered in four days’ worth of filth. I scratched my scalp and sniffed the ends of my fingers. The stench reminded me of my father. There was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Goose! You done yet?” my roommate Maurice shouted.
“Yeah. I just gotta shower.”
“You still didn’t shower? We have to be down in ten minutes, hurry up!”
Even in the shower, with the water running over them, I couldn’t stop staring at my hands. I noticed recently that they ached with the desire to build. I used to make model airplanes back home. There are few things I love more than grabbing, gripping, and gluing airplane parts together. I hung them up all over my room. It’s still the same setup back in Salt Lake, unless my parents gave my room to Jeenie. She always complained of how her room had no windows and that there wasn’t enough light. “Light expands space,” she used to say. She always loved it when I finished building a new model. She was the first one I would show it to.
“Wow Ian! How long did this one take you?” Jeenie always asked while scanning the airplane with her eyes. “Can I touch it?”
“I don’t know Jeenie. Will you be careful?” Then she would nod frantically with her eyes wide. I could never resist handing the model to her even though the last thing I wanted was her greasy fingers all over it. Every time she handled one, it was ruined. However slight, she managed to create an imperfection in the impeccable design I labored over for hours; a smudge in the paint not dry, a slightly misplaced piece not fully glued, and those oily fingerprints. One time I screamed at her for snapping off the engine of a B-47 Stratojet whose space for glue was so impossibly small that it took a full day hunched over my desk lamp just to attach.
“I told you to be careful, Jeenie! Why do you have to be so damn clumsy? Do you always need to touch everything like a creep?” I’ll never forget the look on her face– pathetic, fearful apologetic. I never felt so horrible in my entire life. She cried and cried while my mom held my seven-year-old little sister in her lap.
“But…I…just…wan…ted…to…see…it…was…so…pre…tty…” she said in a sorrowful staccato.
“I know, honey. But you know how much time your brother spends on his models. Just be more careful next time. He’s not mad at you, Jeenie, you know that.”
That night I smashed the B47 Stratojet to pieces. The next morning my knuckles were scratched and red. At the table, Jeenie hid behind her glass of orange juice when she saw me coming and sipped sheepishly. I wanted to apologize to her more than anything, but instead I remained silent with a cold expression, avoiding her eyes. My hands were on the tabletop, and I will never forget this, she reached over with her tiny finger, and was about to touch a cut but first asked softly, “Can I touch it?”
I cupped my hands, pressed them against my stomach, and watched them collect water from a rivulet running down my chest. Then I spread my fingers apart to hear the splash.
After dressing, I met Maurice downstairs and followed him outside where Company Sergeant Major Daniels was waiting for us in front of his jeep.
“Private Ferol,” he said to Maurice.
“Sir."
“Private Helmen,” he said to me.
“Sir.”
“On a day of such utter importance, it goes without saying that if I request you men to be ready and out here at 0900 hours, I expect for you two to be ready and out here thirty minutes earlier than said time. Was that not understood?”
“Sir!” we replied in unison.
“Then it also goes without saying that being out here at 8:58 is completely unacceptable. How do you explain this flagrant tardiness, privates?”
“Sir, Private Helmen felt nervous and took more time than usual to get ready, sir!” I gritted my teeth to stop myself from glaring at Maurice.
“Private Helmen, is this true? Were you nervous?”
“Sir, slightly nervous, sir!” I said, my face neutral.
“I see. Well, it is understandable,” CSM Daniels said, rubbing his chin, “but you do understand we are ridding our nation of a despicable pervert and criminal?"
"Sir!"
"Right. So then stomach whatever sympathy, empathy, or anxiety you feel and man the hell up, private.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” I wasn’t going to stomach anything.
On the ride there, I thought about the twelve blank cartridges. Of course I knew it was just a military ploy to put our minds at ease but in the end, it was still a fifty percent chance. I wasn’t sure if it alleviated the pressure or strengthened it. I thought about how Maurice had mentioned the other night that the recoil between a live bullet and a blank were noticeably different, the blank being much lower. But then I thought about how I hadn’t handled a firearm in so long, I would hardly notice the difference, even if I were to fire it with a guiltless conscience. I looked at my hands and they were shaking. They were not ready for a rifle. Rather, they were begging for the parts of a model airplane. I thought about Jeenie’s huge eyes behind a glass of orange juice. I squeezed my hands between my thighs to keep them still but it wouldn’t work. Instead, my hands went through the motions of grabbing, gripping, and gluing.
When we arrived at the ground, the division stood in three rows, each in the shape of a “U”. I stood with the regiment, twenty three other soldiers looking much calmer and composed than I. My fingers grabbed at the rudder. We were led through the ranks. My hand gripped the left wing. The drum corps proceeded with the dead march resounding. My fingers glued the canopy. The condemned victim marched steadily, staring intensely at the floor and my fingers grabbed the vertical stabilizer.
“Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea,” the Reverend recited and I couldn’t help my fingers from gripping the paintbrush and coloring in the engine. A white cloth was wrapped tightly around the victim’s eyes.
“The court sentences the accused no.227 Private Jeffrey Pebble to suffer death by being shot.” I’m sorry Jeenie. “Make ready.” I didn’t mean to yell at you. “Aim!” Of course you can touch it. “Fire!” I held my breath and pulled.
Twelve bullets tore through his flesh and I knew he was dead the moment I saw his hands lay limply at his sides, never to touch or hold anything ever again.