I.
Grandpa told him about the ‘Nam and the crazy ass 60’s. Private First Class Jeremy Wilson was “heading into the shit.” But shit nuttier than anything Grace Slick could’ve dreamed of after a week-long binge of acid and crank.
And no tight gook pussy to fuck.
No exotic sights to see.
Nothing like that.
And you had to keep watch for a particularly nasty upper respiratory infection which no one could agree was serious.
Such was life with the 49th Military Police Brigade, California National Guard, deployed to Sacramento.
Well, Gramps, the hippies finally fucked up royally. The undesirables have run amok and the faggot sissy governor tried to placate them. Now he is calling us to fix his royal fuckup. It only took a massacre.
Three weeks ago, PFC Wilson was in Barstow, working at Arco and taking courses in industrial electrical maintenance.
Now he was rolling in a convoy of armored Humvees across the Tower Bridge into downtown. Art deco edifices and revivified old west buildings flashed by. Trashed and covered in graffiti.
PFC Wilson got a wonderful view of all this scenery and the occasional mauled corpse in the morning light.
He panned around in the cupola behind the M240B machine gun.
The convoy rolled down Capitol Mall on approach to the State Capitol smoking in the distance against a white sky.
II.
Sgt. Ramirez made an announcement as they did the old hurry-up-and-wait bit in front of the ruins of the Capitol.
PFC Wilson was bored, blue eyes counting the shell casings on the trampled, torn-up grass of the Capitol grounds.
Wasn’t this where those neo-Nazis stabbed those antifa years ago? When was that? I think I was just starting high school then.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new mission: we get to pull counter-insurgency ops in Del Paso Heights. And it is hot and poppin’!”
The sun climbed midway up the deep blue sky, not a cloud to be seen. The columns of smoke from the burning city climbed straight up into infinity.
Warnings were placed for them to see. Stripped, flayed, and hung bodies decorated the traffic lights. Black bodies, a gift from Santa Muerte.
Her icy hand reached in and gripped PFC Wilson’s heart.
They livestreamed on Facebook and Periscope for everyone to see. Heavy hitters from the Tijuana Cartel leading Sureños killing black people. Laying into them with AKs. That type of shit doesn’t happen in America!
The muzzle flashes played again in PFC Wilson’s mind; the whole country, the whole world saw what went down.
So many videos from so many POVs.
Then, finally, Governor Newsom called for full mobilization of the National Guard.
PFC Wilson snapped back to full reality. He worked the M240B. Seeing everything.
An RPG hit the lead convoy vehicle, sending up a roaring explosion. He swung the gun in the direction of the rocket’s source and fired a burst at a fleeing figure in Oakland Raiders regalia. The tail Humvee went up in a fireball.
The convoy halted.
MPs dismounted and took up firing positions.
Well-aimed rifle fire drove back the Sureños. A knot of them bolted down a side street.
“Nail those fuckers, Wilson!” Sgt. Ramirez shouted.
The Humvee took off after them. PFC Wilson laid it into them. Humvee wheels pancaked a wounded cholo.
Dismounted soldiers trailed in their wake engaging the enemy, now appearing on all sides.
A rocket hit the front tire, causing the Humvee to pitch forward and skid onto its side. PFC Wilson skittered out of his cupola, pulling the M240B free. He braced it on the Humvee and saw a fleeting movement on the roof to his left.
Lead spatter stung his face.
He depressed the trigger,
BAM! BAM! BAM!
And the fucking thing jammed.
Ducking to cover, he rotated the gun to its side.
Fucking feed tray is bent the fuck up.
The gunfire died.
Someone was shouting, “Sgt. Ramirez is dead.”
III.
He hadn’t slept in 48 hours. PFC Wilson’s nerves were shot.
“Mount bayonets!”
A new order.
A new mission.
Crowd control.
The continual smell of tear gas pissed off PFC Wilson. The continual pelting with rocks and fireworks pissed off PFC Wilson. The continual threat really pissed off PFC Wilson.
He fell into formation on the line, another round in the dance. Not this time, though.
“Lethal force authorized.”
Antifa and looters back at it.
48 hours of near continuous insults and smart-ass slogans from degenerates.
“Lethal force authorized.”
The heart within PFC Wilson’s breast leapt at the new orders.
His company formed into a skirmish line, rifles, bayonets mounted, at the ready.
Wicked, the bayonet’s saw back grinned, heavy blade and clip point gleamed dull bead blasted winked in the street lights.
The protesting looters jeered and cursed them.
A steady stream of stupid shit.
“Fucking fascists.”
“I’ll fuck you if you put down that rifle!”
The police pulled back.
People in the crowd complained.
“What the fuck? My Internet is gone.”
PFC Wilson leered at them, obscure behind the Lexan face shield.
Over the loudspeaker, Major Sutter addressed the mob.
“Lethal force has been authorized! Disperse at once.”
The streetlights went off, the vehicle mounted flood lights went on.
“Forward march!” came the final order.
The teeming mass seethed before the troopers.
PFC Wilson saw her snarling elfin face before him, some riot Barbie.
Her and her besties wouldn’t disperse.
“Move!” he shouted, gripping the butt stock and handguards of his M4.
“Move!”
“Big gun to make up for a little dick!”
PFC Wilson brought his M4 to high ready and, discharging all his energy, jammed the bayonet through her nose into her skull.
Skin parted, cartilage crunched, bone splintered. Her baby blues rolled up into her skull.
She tumbled over, taking his M4 with her. She twitched and jiggled as her cleaved brain fired a shit ton of signals through her nerves.
Her friends’ hands reached to help her.
PFC Wilson’s friends took care of that.
Blood slicked the ground.
The bayonet was stuck in the bitch’s face. PFC Wilson leaned over her.
“Hold formation, Wilson,” the new Sergeant ordered him. “Just yank it out of that white cunt’s face.”
PFC Wilson pressed his boot into her chest, squishing her tits, leaving a bloody boot print on her shirt, on the Black Lives Matter logo.
“Baby likes it rough from the big black rifle?” PFC chuckled to himself, her soon-to-be-corpse still thrashing on the red wet asphalt.
He marched on.
A multitude of screams echoed through the night.
No one heard.
No one cared.
“The numbers are inflated.”
“The photos doctored.”
“The video too unclear.”
It’s all fake news.
Proteus Juvenalis, of the Lost Generation, is a cynic and misanthrope orbiting Neptune and contemplating his former home. His stream of consciousness broadcasts can be found on Telegram.
