Victims of Fate

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are prepared, and victims.
-A Drill Sergeant

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Very early Friday morning, I awoke on the streets of Milan with a start. I'd been asleep for 20 minutes but my neck was killing me. Stabbs was asleep beside me, Operator slumbered in the front passenger seat, and in the driver seat, Enanita was losing control of herself.

"Operator!" she cried out.

He roused and slurred, "what. What?"

Enanita took another right turn. Last I remembered, we had just gotten into Milan, and a catnap later, we were still circling the city blocks, looking very lost.

"Help!" she demanded.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Just--Just--I need to find a place to pull over so I can stop driving around in circles!" she cried. Her voice was shrill. There was a natural pause in the air, as she'd just arrived at a red light. Ours was the only car moving for blocks.

"You just want a place to stop?" he confirmed. She nodded, her eyes glistening. Wordlessly, Operator jerked the emergency brake on, unfastened his seatbelt, opened his door and went around to the driver's side. Enanita put the car in park, climbed over to the passenger seat, and dutifully put on her seatbelt. Operator released the brake, put the car in drive, took a right turn, took a left, and pulled us into a parallel parking space on a dead-end street.

Operator turned off the car, and Enanita got out and stomped off into the night.

"What the fuck was that," I asked.

"I dunno," Operator said.

"Did she get lost again? She can't find the hotel?"

"I dunno. There is no hotel."

"What are you talking about? I thought we were going to a hotel here. You said you'd made reservations. We're in Milan, right?"

"Yeah, I think we're in Milan. We didn't make any reservations for Milan. We made them for Nice. We were just gonna find a place to stay the night once we got here." I had thought Milan was a destination, but it dawned on me that it was merely a stop along the journey.

"What, is that what she's doing now?" I asked, gesturing towards Enanito, who was now 50 meters down the block, behind us.

He replied, "I dunno." Then he stepped out of the car.

Moments later, I could hear them arguing, but I didn't care. After they stopped arguing, they got back in the car and we rode for another 10 minutes searching for hotels. We stopped at 3 places and yielded nothing vacant or even in our price range. Operator drove us back to that same parking spot, killed the engine, and we went to sleep. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I remembered another night, 5 months ago, in Paris that made this feel like deja vu.

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Operator insisted that we spend that three-day weekend in Paris. He needed to see Sasha, a girl he'd twice proposed to. Sasha had just arrived in Paris for a semester of study abroad. She had declined marriage because they are young, but he is certain that he could never love another girl.

And me? I came along, hoping to meet up with Southie, a girl from Boston that I'd met my super-senior year of college. Southie was also in Paris for a semester abroad.

We hit the road right after work let out on Friday and arrived in Paris at 0200 hours, Saturday. Operator had said that we could find any old hotel--after all, it was Paris. We got into town, he called Sasha, we GPSed her address, picked her up, and drove around Paris, looking for a suitable hotel. We couldn't stay at Sasha's apartment because her landlord was an old-fashioned lady who clucked disapprovingly whenever Sasha had male friends visit, and besides, even if Operator didn't need a place, I needed a place to stay. (My hook-up would be out of town until Sunday.) That night, we criss-crossed Paris to no avail. One of the possible places, Hôtel de Ville, turned out to be a city hall. We ran out of gas, and all of the gas stations were closed until 0600.

That night in January, we pulled to the side of a road, in front of some stranger's house to keep the gendarmes off our back, turned the engine off, and shivered under our individual winter coats.

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In Milan, we dozed for another half hour before Operator decided, fuck it, we're not staying the night in Milan. He'd been sleeping since we got out of Austria, and slept the entire drive through Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy into Milan. He made it another half hour before he pulled to a rest station along Italy's autostrada.

We were parked under a street light, and I had to cover my eyes with one of my socks to get any rest.

Like the Paris trip, I was grossly under-prepared for this trip. Thursday after lunch, I'd idly asked Operator what he had in store for the weekend. He mentioned Milan and Nice, and asked if I wanted to come. Of course I jumped at it.

Once we got to our hotel, Le Meridien, I had to buy swim trunks and flip flops because I didn't know that Nice was on France's Mediterranean coast. That Nice was in fact, a part of France's famed Riviera. I'd just wanted to get out of the barracks and see more of Europe before I'd be breathing in Iraq's wasteland of moondust.

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Germany had been storming the past week, and we'd been putting in longer days in preparation for our deployment. There was a new energy on post, as everything we did was drenched in the grim urgency and importance of war.

France was a welcome change of pace.

I mostly lounged on the beach, with a novel and mojito in hand. The Mediterranean sun blazed late into the evenings there. The sea brought in balmy winds that cooled my brow. I drifted into and out of consciousness under the warm skies. When I couldn't focus anymore on the novel at hand, I took off into the brisk, clear waters and swam. I haven't been to the beach in years, it seems--at least the 19 months that I've been in the Army, anyway. I went out to where I could no longer stand and treaded water.

There were young couples out. The girls were scandalously sexy, and I deeply envied the French with their warm sun, cool waters, and supple, beautiful girls. In the evenings, the youth were out in force. Legions of lovely French ladies swarming the streets and cafes, bodies banging, eyes expectant, and boyfriends hand in hand.

For two whole days, I tasted this glimmering, slightly bitter wine. I think of it as a recon mission. A lifetime later, after Iraq, I'll be ready and in force.